Asia-Pacific
Nigerian charged in Xmas airliner attack
(Xinhua)
Updated: 2009-12-27 08:41
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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.
