Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab
The Nigerian who is accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound jetliner on Christmas Day 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, created a scene in an appearance before a Detroit jury Wednesday by shouting in praise of slain terror leader, Osama bin Laden, and proclaimed jihad.
According to Detroit Free Press, the underwear bomber arrived in court in an apparent foul mood shouting “Osama’s alive”, as he entered the court room, adding: “I’m forced to wear prison clothes.”
Abdulmutallab, wearing khaki prison pants, a white T-shirt and black skull cap, refused to stand when US District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who was in another room with prospective jurors, asked him to stand with others in her courtroom several floors away.
While Edmunds briefed jurors about the allegations against him, Abdulmutallab hollered “jihad” and stared at the ceiling when she told jurors about the alleged plot to blow up the plane with a bomb in his underwear.
When the evidentiary hearing resumed after a brief recess, Edmunds noticed that Abdulmutallab had put on a white dress shirt but left it unbuttoned in the front.
"I will just tell you that if you want to make a better impression on the jury, you should button the shirt,” Edmunds told him. He said he wanted to wear it unbuttoned.
After lunch when the hearing resumed, Abdulmutallab told reporters when he walked in: "Don't say Osama is dead."
During most of the 25-minute jury instruction, Abdulmutallab sat at the defence table with his standby lawyer, Anthony Chambers, leaning back in his chair with his hands clasped under his chin. At one point, he put his foot on the defence table.
Federal marshals stood over him while he misbehaved. The prospective jurors could observe his antics on a two-way closed circuit television monitor.
During her presentation to jurors, Edmunds said: “We are not trying to find people for this jury, who have never heard of this case. ... We are looking for people who ... are fair, objective and impartial.”
The trial is to get under way October 11 and take four weeks. After instructing the jury and leaving them to fill out a questionnaire, Edmunds conducted a hearing to decide several requests from Abdulmutallab, including one to be released claiming he’s being unlawfully detained by the US government. Specifically, he has argued in court documents “all Muslims should only be ruled by the law of the Quran.”
She denied the request.
Abdulmutallab also wanted Edmunds to suppress incriminating statements he made to federal agents while being treated at the burn unit of the University of Michigan Hospital after his bomb misfired. Among the statements he made to agents was that he was working on behalf of al-Qaeda, court records show.
During an hour of testimony, Julia Longenecker, a nurse who treated his burns, said he never complained of any pain and was lucid and aware of his surroundings while nurses scrubbed and wrapped his burns.
His only complaint, she testified, was the Christmas music playing in the background. “He asked if we could turn it off,” she said. “It was Christmas Day and we were working, but we didn’t turn it off.”
She said he was very polite throughout the one-hour procedure: “He wasn’t mean, he wasn’t hostile. ... He was always even-keeled”
On cross-examination by Chambers, she admitted that she was told not to give him additional fentanyl pain medication before he was to be questioned by agents.
But she couldn’t remember who gave the order. She said she would have insisted he receive more fentanyl if she thought he was in pain.
But she couldn’t remember who gave the order. She said she would have insisted he receive more fentanyl if she thought he was in pain.
After treatment, she said Abdulmutallab was taken to a hospital room where FBI agents questioned him. She said agents were polite during questioning.
During cross-examination, Chambers tried and failed to get her to concede that Abdulmutallab could have been high on fentanyl.
Also, an FBI agent testified that he did not read Miranda rights to the 24-year-old Nigerian because he was worried about other suicide bombers.
In a jury selection hearing, FBI Agent Timothy Waters testified that he questioned Abdulmutallab at the hospital for about 50 minutes.
Waters, an FBI terrorism expert, said that from experiences abroad, reading non-US citizens Miranda rights complicates the ability to get information quickly.
“It stops the process dead in its tracks,” Waters said. “I didn’t feel it was necessary. We needed information right not about individuals willing to martyr themselves on other airplanes.”
He said Abdulmutallab admitted he was an al-Qaida operative from Yemen, talked about how he had become radicalised and about other al-Qaida operatives with whom he had met after going to Yemen from Nigeria.
After all the questionnaires are filled out, jury selection will resume October 4. Notified prospective jurors will report in small groups for individual questioning, known as voir dire. This is when the defence and prosecution question each individual, looking for possible biases or red flags, and pick the actual jury.
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