DETROIT — If it hadn’t have been so potentially deadly and scary, Nigerian terrorism suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab’s Christmas day Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit in 2009 might have made a good Saturday Night Live skit.
Witness Michael Zantow, who was flying to Wisconsin to visit his ailing mom from his job in the Middle East as a U.S. Air Force contractor, testified Tuesday in U.S. District Court in downtown Detroit that he was sitting one row behind Abdulmutallab (aka The Underwear Bomber) when the action started, The Detroit News reported.
Zantow testified that he noticed Abdulmutallab cover himself with a blanket minutes before hearing a loud pop, the News reported.
Zantow said seconds passed before a man sitting next to Abdulmutallab yelled: “Hey dude, your pants are on fire!”
He also testified, according to the News: “His underwear resembled something I hadn’t seen before. It was bulky, it reminded me of my son’s Pull-Ups. I assumed it was adult Pampers.”
The bomb never detonated and Abdulmutallab was arrested and quickly dubbed the “Underwear Bomber.”
Earlier in trial, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jonathan Tukel told jurors in opening statements that Addulmutallab thought by trying to blow up the plane “he would end up in heaven because he would be a martyr.”
“He wanted jihad, and he sought it out and he found it,” Tukel told jurors.
Abdulmutallab, who is representing himself, but has an attorney assisting in his defense, was originally expected to give an opening statement. Then he handed the job off to his attorney Anthony Chambers, who decided to forgo any opening statement, the News reported.
Abdulmutallab appeared to figure he had nothing to lose by going to trial since the feds had offered him no deal considering they figured they had a smoking gun — or in his case, smoking underwear.
The trial is expected to last about a month.
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