Legal Commentary

Yemen: Abdulmutallab Got Explosives at Nigeria Airport

By Jeralyn

A senior Yemeni official today in explaining Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's movements, says he got the explosive device during his layover in Lagos, Nigeria when changing planes, not in Yemen. His layover, they have previously said, was 35 minutes.

But the official, Rashad al-Alimi, the deputy prime minister for national security and defense, cited Yemeni investigations and said that the Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, 23, had acquired the explosives used in the failed attack not in Yemen, which he left on Dec. 4, but in Nigeria, where he changed planes at the Lagos airport on Dec. 24, boarding a flight to Amsterdam and then Detroit.

There are some inconsistencies. And where was he between December 4 and December 24? Ghana says he arrived there on December 9, from Ethiopia. They believe he had a 4 hour lay-over in Nigeria. (This can't be too hard to check.)

And more speculation on the role of cleric al Awlaki.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on January 07, 2010 (boomark / email).