The underwear bomber accused of a Christmas Day plot to blow-up a U.S.-bound airliner claimed in a court outburst today that slain terror boss Osama bin Laden is still alive. Hit the jump to read the rest of the story.
@WiL
Arriving at the U.S. District Court in Detroit for jury selection in his trial, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab shouted: ‘Osama’s alive!’
The 24-year-old Nigerian student sullenly refused to stand up at the request of Judge Nancy Edmunds and put his feet up on the courtroom defence table.
During a pre-trial hearing, FBI agent Timothy Waters testified that he did not read Miranda rights to the suspect immediately after the December 2009 bombing attempt because he was worried about the possibility there could be other suicide bombers.
Mr Waters said he quizzed Abdulmutallab for nearly an hour in hospital after the student’s attempts to detonate explosives he had hidden in his underwear was thwarted by an eagle-eyed passenger.
The agent said he was desperate to get information quickly and didn’t want to complicate the process by reading the non-U.S. citizen his rights.
‘It stops the process dead in its tracks,’ said Mr Waters, according to the Detroit Free Press.
DM