Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old Nigerian who tried to blow up a Northwest flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day lived a life of wealth and privilege and was educated at one of Britain’s elite universities.
Independent: The son of one of Nigeria’s most important figures, he opted to make his impact in a very different way – by detonating 80g of explosives sewn into his underpants, and trying to destroy a passenger jet as it came in to land at Detroit Airport on Christmas Day.
Abdulmutallab, 23, had lived a gilded life, and, for the three years he studied in London, he stayed in a $3m apartment. He was from a very different background to many of the other al-Qa’ida recruits who opt for martyrdom.
