FILE - This December 2009 file photo released by the U.S. Marshal's Service shows Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Milan, Mich. Abdulmutallab is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, for trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas 2009. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service, File)
FILE - This December 2009 file photo released by the U.S. Marshal's Service shows Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab in Milan, Mich. Abdulmutallab is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday, Feb. 16, 2012, for trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner with a bomb in his underwear on Christmas 2009. (AP Photo/U.S. Marshals Service, File)
DETROIT (AP) ? At least five passengers were expected to speak Thursday at the sentencing of a Nigerian man who admits trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner at Christmas 2009.
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab faces a sentence of life in prison, four months after pleading guilty in U.S. federal court.
Abdulmutallab, the 25-year-old son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, tried to detonate a bomb in his underwear as the flight from Amsterdam approached Detroit Metropolitan Airport. The device didn't work but caused smoke and flames and badly burned his groin.
The government says Abdulmutallab was on a suicide mission for al-Qaida.
During his trial, Abdulmutallab said he was carrying a "blessed weapon" to avenge Muslims who have been killed or poorly treated around the world. He admitted he was inspired by Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric and leading al-Qaida figure in Yemen who was killed by a U.S. drone strike last fall.
"The Quran obliges every able Muslim to participate in jihad and fight in the way of Allah those who fight you, and kill them wherever you find them ... an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth," Abdulmutallab said.
Anthony Chambers, an attorney appointed to assist Abdulmutallab, believes he will speak again Thursday but doesn't know what he'll say.
Chambers, meanwhile, is urging the judge to declare that a mandatory life sentence is unconstitutional, claiming it is a cruel punishment in a case where no one but Abdulmutallab was physically hurt.
Passenger Shama Chopra of Montreal said she's become "bolder" and "stronger" since the incident. The 56-year-old ran for Canadian Parliament last year, a feat she could not have imagined years ago.
Associated Pressalley boy alley boy wanda sykes bristol palin bethenny frankel orlando brown orlando brown
কোন মন্তব্য নেই:
একটি মন্তব্য পোস্ট করুন