A federal judge on Thursday sentenced a Nigerian man to life in prison for trying to blow up a U.S. airliner bound for Detroit in 2009.
"This was an act of terrorism that cannot be quibbled with," said U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds, who imposed the maximum sentence allowed.
A bomb hidden in the underwear of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, now 25, caused a fire but failed to explode on a Delta Air Lines flight carrying 289 people on Dec. 25, 2009.
Abdulmutallab, who wore a white T-shirt and skull cap, sat impassively as the sentence was read out in a crowded Detroit court room.
Earlier, he used a four-minute address to the court to repeat that his attack was intended to avenge "the attacks of the United States on Muslims." He had pleaded guilty to trying to blow up the plane.
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