Reports there could be 25 other potential bombers secretly training in Yemen
The Washington Post reported yesterday that “Abdulmutallab was charged Saturday in U.S. District Court for Eastern Michigan with attempting to destroy an aircraft and with placing a destructive device onboard a plane, each of which is punishable by up to 20 years in prison. U.S. District Judge Paul D. Borman informed Abdulmutallab of the charges during a hearing at the University of Michigan Health System in Ann Arbor, where he is being treated at the burn unit.”
So a maximum of 40 years in prison, and perhaps the chance to get time off for good behavior. Of course, we also don’t get to interrogate him to find out who he was working with and what other plots are out there. If he were treated as an enemy combatant and transferred to military commission system, we could use Army Field Manual techniques without Miranda (not as effective as enhanced techniques, of course, but much better than standard police practice). We could use his non-Mirandized statements against him in military commissions, so long as the statements were not forcibly coerced and were otherwise reliable. Instead, it’s three squares a day, the best legal defense the ACLU can provide, and maybe the chance for parole before the kids he was trying to kill on that plane even make it out of college.
Poor Handling?
Update: Dutch police investigating report of accomplice in Northwest Flight 235 terror plot
A Michigan man who was aboard Northwest Airlines Flight 253 says he witnessed Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab trying to board the plane in Amsterdam without a passport.
Al-Qaeda claims failed attack on US-bound plane: US monitors
Al-Qaeda claimed the failed December 25 bombing of a US-bound aircraft in a statement picked up by US monitors Monday as the jihadists threatened attacks on Western targets and Yemen vowed no let-up in its campaign against them.
Al-Qaeda’s Arabian peninsula franchise acknowledged in the posting on the Internet that a “technical fault” had caused the failure of the plot against Friday’s Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, SITE Intelligence said.
The statement which was accompanied by a picture of suspected would-be bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boasted the “Nigerian brother” broke all security barriers for his operation, dispelling the “great myth” of American intelligence.
Did President Obama wait too long to respond to attempted bombing of U.S. plane?
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