'Underwear bomber' gets life in prison

DETROIT -- A federal judge ordered life in prison yesterday for a 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.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who has said he was on a suicide mission for al-Qaida, was the same defiant man who four months ago pleaded guilty to all charges related to the attempted Christmas Day 2009 bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253.

He seemed to relish his mandatory sentence and defended his actions as rooted in the Muslim holy book, the Quran.

"Mujahideen are proud to kill in the name of God. And that is exactly what God told us to do in the Quran," he said. "Today is a day of victory."

Earlier, four passengers and a crew member who were aboard the plane told U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds that the event forever changed their lives. Abdulmutallab appeared uninterested during their remarks, rarely looking up while seated just a few feet away in a white skull cap and oversized prison T-shirt.

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," the judge said. "The defendant poses a significant ongoing threat to the safety of American citizens everywhere."

Abdulmutallab, 25, the 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 and one of the best-known al-Qaida figures, who was killed.