It doesn’t really matter if he was an al-Qaeda operative or not. There are many jihadists who are not al-Qaeda. But it is good to see this judge not folding to the courtroom jihad being waged by Abdulmutallab’s defense team. “Judge: Underwear bomber’s statements about being al-Qaida operative admissible,” by David Ashenfelter and Tresa Baldas for the Detroit Free Press, September 15 (thanks to Block Ness):
A federal judge today refused to throw out incriminating statements a 24-year-old Nigerian student made to federal agents shortly after he allegedly tried to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day 2009.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds concluded that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab wasn’t under the influence of the painkiller fentanyl when he told agents he was an al-Qaida operative who was trying to blow up the plane….
More than 300 people were aboard the Amsterdam to Detroit flight when Abdulmutallab allegedly ignited explosives concealed in his underwear….