Naija News

Appearing before a federal judge in Detroit, Michigan, convicted ‘underwear bomber’ Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was told Friday he would not be granted a Muslim lawyer for the sentencing hearing which has now been postponed till February.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had demanded new counsel, claiming his standby lawyer was ignoring him.

In fact, according to local reports, the lawyer, Anthony Chambers, a prominent Detroit criminal defense attorney, played a major role, filing motions, representing Abdulmutallab at pre-trial hearings and questioning nearly every potential juror at the beginning of his trial.

“Because defendant represents himself, he has no right to standby counsel, let alone standby counsel of his choice,” federal prosecutors wrote in court documents filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit.

Abdulmutallab, who studied engineering in London and the Middle East,had been representing himself after firing his original attorneys in 2010. U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds then appointed Chambers, who assisted the case during the abbreviated trial.

Abdulmutallab is now slated to be sentenced on Feb. 16, after a delay was granted to allow a pre-sentencing report to be reviewed by attorney Chambers. He faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole.

The Nigerian student-turned-Al Qaeda operative was convicted of eight counts of terrorism for trying to detonate a bomb concealed in his underwear on an Amsterdam-to-Detroit jetliner carrying more than 300 people. The plot was botched when passengers and crew members overcame him. He suffered burns to his genitals and legs in the incident.