Terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab faces 20 years, $250,000 fine for attack on Flight 253

A Nigerian banker's son charged with trying to blow up a plane over Detroit claims he trained with Al Qaeda leaders who had explosives sewn into his underwear, it was reported Saturday.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab told investigators a radical imam he met over the Internet hooked him up with a terror boss in northern Yemen, ABC News said.

He says he trained with the Al Qaeda leader for a month while they planned the Christmas Day attack on Northwest Flight 253.

A Saudi bomb maker rigged up a six-inch packet of high explosives - known as PETN - and a syringe and sewed it into his underpants, the report said.

Possible evidence of Abdulmutallab's terror ties emerged as he was hit with criminal charges and air regulations were beefed up.

Meanwhile, disturbing questions swirled about how the suspect was able to get on the U.S.-bound plane with a one-way ticket, a bomb in his pants and a questionable background.

Abdulmutallab has been on a watch list by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center for two years, an official said. There are 550,000 people with suspected ties to terrorism on the list.

Relatives in Nigeria said the suspect's father - a prominent banker - was stunned his son was allowed to fly to the U.S.

The father alerted the U.S. Embassy in Nigeria months ago that his son had developed "extreme religious views" and had disappeared, the Nigerian newspaper This Day reported.

"I am really disturbed," said Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, a former minister and chairman of First Bank in Nigeria. "I have been summoned by the Nigerian security and I am on my way to Abuja to answer the call."

Abdulmutallab was also barred from entering Britain in May after he reportedly tried to dupe officials into letting him in the country to study at a bogus college.

Despite the red flags, he was not on a Transportation Security Administration "no-fly" list - and got a two-year U.S. travel visa in 2008.

"There has to be a full congressional investigation as to what is in his file and why he was not on the no-fly list," Rep. Peter King (R-L.I.), ranking Republican on the House Homeland Security Committee, told the Daily News.

King learned Saturday that Abdulmutallab had "significant terrorism connections."

"There was a classified file on [him]," King said, adding that intelligence officials were able to instantly pull up his dossier.

Abdulmutallab left Nigeria Dec. 24 on a KLM flight to Amsterdam, where he switched to a Northwest flight to Detroit.

As the plane neared its destination, Abdulmutallab went to the bathroom for approximately 20 minutes before the attack, according to an affidavit filed Saturday

Flight 253 terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab led life of luxury in London before attempted attack

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab lived a life of extraordinary privilege before he turned to terror.

The son of a wealthy Nigerian banker, Abdulmutallab was educated at top schools in Africa and Britain - and dwelled in homes worth millions, his relatives said.

The baby-faced extremist's last known address was a $4 million flat in one of London's poshest neighborhoods.

Police in London scoured the swanky apartment Saturday in search of clues as to what - or who - might have led Abdulmutallab, 23, to try to blow up a packed jet over Detroit.

The flat, in London's West End, is surrounded by several of the city's best-known tourist haunts, including Piccadilly Circus and Trafalgar Square.

Historic theaters, expensive hotels and exclusive retail stores are all within walking distance of Abdulmutallab's former pad.

He reportedly hails from a far more humble place, the Nigerian border town of Katsina.

Abdulmutallab's father, Dr. Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, was a government minister during the 1970s and went on to become the head of the First Bank of Nigeria.

As a teen, Abdulmutallab attended the British International School in Lome, Togo, a Nigerian paper reported.

There, he quickly acquired a reputation as a devoted Muslim.

"At the secondary school, he was known for preaching about Islam to his schoolmates and he was popularly called 'Alfa,' a local coinage for Islamic scholar," according to The Day.

After his secondary school, Abdulmutallab went to the prestigious University College London in 2005 to study engineering. He graduated three years later.

Abdulmutallab was apparently sent to Dubai by his father after finishing his education in London.

CNN reported he fled to Yemen, a hotbed of militant activity, soon after and cut off all communication with his family.

Who Abdulmutallab met with in Yemen remains unclear. But by the time he left the country, he had apparently become a radicalized extremist bent on inflicting carnage in the West.

This past May, he reportedly tried to return to Britain for a six-month program, but his visa application was denied by the United Kingdom Border Agency.

An official told the Times of London "he was applying to study at an educational establishment that we didn't consider to be genuine."

Seven months later, Abdulmutallab completed his descent from the promising child of a wealthy family to a brazen terrorist when he tried to set off an explosive inside Northwest Flight 253.

Nigerian man charged in Christmas airliner attack

DETROIT – A 23-year-old Nigerian man who claimed to have ties to al-Qaida was charged Saturday with trying to destroy a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day, as authorities learned his father had warned U.S. officials of concerns about his son.

Some airline passengers traveling Saturday felt the consequences of the frightening attack. They were told that new U.S. regulations prevented them from leaving their seats beginning an hour before landing.

The Justice Department charged that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (OO-mahr fah-ROOK ahb-DOOL-moo-TAH-lahb) willfully attempted to destroy or wreck an aircraft; and that he placed a destructive device in the plane.

U.S. District Judge Paul Borman read Abdulmutallab the charges in a conference room at the University of Michigan Medical Center in Ann Arbor, Mich. where he is being treated for burns.

An affidavit said he had a device containing a high explosive attached to his body. The affidavit said that as Northwest Flight 253 descended toward Detroit Metropolitan Airport, Abdulmutallab set off the device — sparking a fire instead of an explosion.

According to the affidavit filed in U.S. District Court in Detroit, a preliminary analysis of the device showed it contained PETN, also known as pentaerythritol.

This was the same material convicted shoe bomber Richard Reid used when he tried to destroy a trans-Atlantic flight in 2001 with explosives hidden in his shoes.

PETN is often used in military explosives and found inside blasting caps. But terrorists like it because it's small and powerful.

The suspect smiled when he was wheeled into the hospital conference room. He had a bandage on his left thumb and right wrist, and part of the skin on the thumb was burned off.

He was wearing a light green hospital robe and blue hospital socks. The judge sat at the far end of a 10-foot table, the suspect at the other end.

Judge Borman asked the defendant if he was pronouncing his name correctly.

Abdulmutallab responded, in English. "Yes, that's fine." The judge asked Abdulmutallab if he understood the charges against him. He responded in English: "Yes, I do."

The judge said the suspect would be assigned a public defender and set a detention hearing for Jan. 8. The hearing lasted 20 minutes.

Attorney General Eric Holder made clear that the United States will look beyond Abdulmutallab. He vowed to "use all measures available to our government to ensure that anyone responsible for this attempted attack is brought to justice."

Abdulmutallab, who had a valid U.S. visa, was in a terrorism database but not on a no-fly list. He lived in a posh London neighborhood, but a law enforcement official said the suspect acknowledged he received training and instructions from al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

President Barack Obama, on vacation in Hawaii, was briefed about developments in the attack. National Security Council chief of staff Denis McDonough was holed up in a secure hotel room in Hawaii to receive briefings, and other traveling presidential aides were kept shut away to monitor new information.

U.S. authorities told The Associated Press that the suspect came to the attention of intelligence officials in November when his father went to the U.S. embassy in Abuja, Nigeria, to express concerns about his son.

One government official said the father did not have any specific information that would put his son on the "no-fly list" or on the list for additional security checks at the airport.

Nor was the information sufficient to revoke his visa to visit the United States. His visa had been granted June 2008 and was valid through June 2010. Officials spoke on condition of anonymity because neither was authorized to speak to the media.

Abdulmutallab appeared on the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment database maintained by the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said a U.S. official who received a briefing. Containing some 550,000 names, the database includes people with known or suspected ties to a terrorist organization. However, it is not a list that would prohibit a person from boarding a U.S.-bound airplane.

In Nigeria, Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, the man's father, told The Associated Press, "I believe he might have been to Yemen, but we are investigating to determine that."

The father was chairman of First Bank of Nigeria from 1999 through this month. The banker said his son is a former university student in London but had left Britain to travel abroad.

London's Metropolitan Police also were working with U.S. officials, said a spokeswoman who spoke on condition of anonymity because of department policy.

A search was conducted Saturday at an apartment building in a posh West London neighborhood where the suspect is said to have lived.

University College London issued a statement saying a student named Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab studied mechanical engineering there between September 2005 and June 2008. But the college said it wasn't certain the student was the same person who was on the plane.