Confused Christmas Bombing Suspect Fires Attorneys

Filed under: News, Politics, Race and Civil Rights

It's starting to look as though the trial of the would-be Christmas Day bomber could resemble a legal circus.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (pictured), the Nigerian man charged with attempting to blow up an international flight on Christmas, suddenly fired his attorneys without providing any explanation.

Abdulmutallab then asked the judge presiding over the case, "If I want to plead guilty to some counts...basically, how would that go?"

It sounds like Abdulmutallab, 24, is a very scared, very confused young man who might be making the second biggest mistake in his life (he made the biggest one on Christmas Day) by trying to represent himself in this case.

Even U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds told the suspect his decision was "unwise." She probably would have liked to jump down from the bench with her gavel in hand and beat Abdulmutallab over the head to get through his thick skull. But that probably wouldn't have worked either.

Abdulmutallab was able to detonate a device hidden in his underwear that sparked a flame aboard the plane. Alert passengers jumped on the suspect and subdued him until an emergency landing was completed.

Abdulmutallab told investigators he received training and instructions from al-Qaida in Yemen.

With the next court hearing scheduled for Oct. 14th, Detroit defense lawyer David Steingold summed up what most people are thinking:

"It's hard to understand what he's thinking," Steingold said.

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