Jury selection resumes for underwear bomb trial

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, whose attempted bombing led to a further tightening of U.S. aviation security, is charged with attempting to detonate explosives sewn into his underwear as Northwest Flight 253 approached Detroit from Amsterdam.


The device malfunctioned and burned Abdulmutallab, who was then overpowered by other passengers. He has been in U.S. custody ever since.


Al Qaeda's resurgent Yemen-based arm claimed responsibility for the failed 2009 attack, which was also praised by Osama bin Laden in 2010, months before the al Qaeda leader was killed in a U.S. commando raid in Pakistan.


Abdulmutallab, 24, is charged with eight felonies, including conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, attempted murder and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.


He faces life in prison if convicted of the botched suicide bombing.


Jury selection began Tuesday.


Abdulmutallab was wearing a new black blazer Wednesday over a tan thawb -- a tunic common in the Middle East and Africa -- with brown dress shoes and white athletic socks. He has been subdued and focused, and paid particular attention to the questioning of a Nigerian-born woman, who was on the pool as of noon.


So far, only one African-American male has made the potential jury pool, and Abdulmutallab's court-appointed lawyer said Wednesday that he would challenge any government effort to eliminate that juror on a peremptory basis. So far, 13 jurors have been excused in two days of questioning.


Abdulmutallab wants to represent himself at trail.


U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds said she wants to assemble a pool of between 37 and 45 potential jurors over the next few days and to pick a final panel of 12 jurors and four alternates by Thursday afternoon.


The trial, which is taking place under high security inside the Theodore Levin U.S. Courthouse in downtown Detroit, is expected to last a month.


Opening arguments are scheduled to start October 11.


Edmunds, the attorneys, and at one point Abdulmutallab himself on Tuesday quizzed potential jurors, many of whom had expressed concern in a questionnaire about their safety if they were picked for the panel.


Abdulmutallab, who studied at University College, London, rose and asked one juror what she meant when she said she worried about people who might be "waiting in the wings outside the courthouse."


U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds wants three dozen people or more for the final selection Thursday. Opening statements are planned for next Tuesday.


Lawyers did not object to keeping a woman from Nigeria, Abdulmutallab's home country, in the jury pool. On her questionnaire, she said she was "embarrassed" when the incident occurred. In court, she said, "We all feel it as a community."


Prospective jurors were being questioned one-by-one in court, but their names and most personal details were not divulged. A man said he had some fear of retaliation, no matter who wins the case.


"I do hear of car bombings. ... I know those things happen in other countries all the time. It's a possibility that's out there," the man said.


Abdulmutallab is acting as his own lawyer but questioned only one potential juror Tuesday. He has primarily left the task to his court-appointed standby attorney, Anthony Chambers.


The government says Abdulmutallab attacked Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on behalf of al-Qaida and with direction from Anwar al-Awlaki, an American-born Muslim cleric who was killed Friday.