Washington Post, 24 January 2010
Badly burned and bleeding, the suspect in the attempted bombing of the Christmas Day flight to Detroit tried one last gambit as he was led away: He said there was another bomb hidden on board, officials said.
It wasn't true, federal agents learned after a tense search. But the Nigerian suspect's threat began hours of conversations that are now the subject of fierce political debate over the right way to handle terrorism suspects.
In interviews, U.S. officials described for the first time the details of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's arrest Dec. 25 at Detroit Metro Airport and the decisions that were made about how to interrogate him.
Captured after a bomb hidden in his underwear ignited but did not explode, Abdulmutallab initially spoke freely and provided valuable intelligence, officials said. Federal agents repeatedly interviewed him or heard him speak to others. When they read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent.
Since the attempted bombing, several prominent lawmakers have argued he should have been placed immediately in military custody. The nation's top intelligence official said he should have been questioned by a special group of terrorism investigators, rather than by the FBI agents who responded to the scene.
..next they'll unveil the excess bean scanner,
and distribute mandatory beano tablets.