DETROIT — The parents of the Nigerian “underwear bomber” who tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009 asked the US to review the life sentences handed down to their son, in a statement released Friday.
“We strongly appeal to the American Justice Department to review the life sentence,” Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s family said in the statement, AFP reported. “We also appeal to the Federal Republic of Nigeria to … engage with the American government to ensure that a review is made to show justice in accordance with the circumstances of Umar Farouk’s case.”
The plea comes one day after a federal judge ordered life in prison for Abdulmutallab, the young Nigerian man who turned away from a privileged life and tried to blow up a packed international flight with a bomb concealed in his underwear.
The bomb failed to fully ignite, but severely burned the terrorist’s crotch.
Abdulmutallab, who has said he was on a suicide mission for al Qaeda, was the same defiant man who four months ago pleaded guilty to all charges related to the case of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. He seemed to relish his mandatory sentence, and defended his actions as rooted in the Muslim holy book, the Koran.
“Mujahedeen are proud to kill in the name of God. And that is exactly what God told us to do in the Koran,” he said. “Today is a day of victory.”
Earlier, four passengers and a crew member who were aboard the plane told US District Judge Nancy Edmunds that the event forever changed their lives. Abdulmutallab appeared uninterested during their remarks, rarely looking up while seated a few feet away.
Abdulmutallab “has never expressed doubt or regret or remorse about his mission,” Edmunds said. “In contrast, he sees that mission as divinely inspired and a continuing mission.”
Life in prison is a “just punishment for what he has done,” the judge said. “The defendant poses a significant ongoing threat to the safety of American citizens everywhere.”
Abdulmutallab, the 25-year-old, European-educated son of a wealthy banker, told the government that he trained in Yemen under the eye of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric.
He chose to detonate a bomb on the Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight, but the device failed and badly burned him. He quickly confessed after he was hauled off the plane.
The judge allowed prosecutors to show a video of the FBI demonstrating the power of the explosive material found in his underwear. As the video played, Abdulmutallab twice said loudly, “Allahu akbar,” meaning God is great.
Lemare Mason, a Detroit-based flight attendant who helped put out the flames, told the judge that he suffers night sweats and his “dream job” no longer is a “joy.”
Theophilus Maranga, a New York lawyer who was a passenger, was disgusted by Abdulmutallab’s references to religion as justification.
“What kind of God is that? God is peace-loving,” Maranga said in court, adding that he prays daily for Abdulmutallab.
Abdulmutallab’s mentor, al-Awlaki, and the man who made the bomb were killed in a US drone strike in Yemen last year.