U.S. District Court Judge Nancy Edmunds handed down the mandatory sentence of life in prison to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian born would be bomber of a commercial airliner.

It was in 2009 that Abdulmutallab had embarked on a suicide mission for Al Qaeda. He boarded Northwest Ailines flight 253 in Amsterdam on a flight to Detroit. He had plastic explosives sewn into his underwear. According to reports he obtained the explosives and a syringe to detonate them from a bomb expert from Yemen with connections to Al Qaeda.

During one point in the flight, Abdulmutallab went to the restroom of the airliner, spending 20 minutes there. When he returned, he covered himself in a blanket, and a short time later, witnesses on the plane heard popping noises and observed Abdulmutallab’s pant leg and the wall of the plane burst into flames. A Dutch film director, Jasper Schuringa, jumped on Abdulmutallab and subdued him while attendants put out the fire with extinguishers.

Abdulmutallab went to trial last year, and abruptly, in October, the trial came to a close when Abdulmutallab plead guilty to the crime. Abdulmutallab claimed that he was working for an Al Qaeda group run by the american cleric, Anwar Awlaki.

It is suspected that Abdulmutallab, the youngest of 16 children of who is considered the richest man in Africa, met Awlaki in Yemen while there on studies.

Al Qaeda in the Arab Peninsula took credit for the failed attack. They claimed that the attack was revenge for the United States role in the military offensive against Al Qaeda in Yemen.

The defense attorneies in the case say the sentencing was cruel and unusual punishment because no one but Abdulmutallab was injuredd in the incident. The judge rejected that request.