THE Nigerian man accused of attempting to blow up a US jetliner on Christmas Day was a student at the satellite campus of an Australian university just months ago.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was studying for a master’s degree at the University of Wollongong’s campus in Dubai, The Wall Street Journal reported.

Abdulmutallab took classes for about seven months, from January to the middle of 2009.

He defied his family’s pleas to remain at the university and graduate by travelling to the terrorism hotbed of Yemen to study Arabic and Shariah law.

The FBI and authorities in Britain, Europe, Yemen and Nigeria are trying to piece together the 23-year-old’s movements over the past year to determine why on approach into Detroit on a Northwest flight on Christmas Day Abdulmutallab allegedly tried to set off a bomb containing the explosive PETN, also known as pentaerythritol.

It is believed the detonator on the bomb malfunctioned, likely saving the 278 passengers and 11 crew members on board.

Abdulmutallab suffered serious burns in the alleged bombing attempt and was initially held in a Michigan hospital, but he has since been transferred to a US federal prison.

Abdulmutallab is the son of an affluent Nigerian family.

His father is the former chairman of Nigeria’s First Bank and Abdulmutallab attended prestigious schools, including a British preparatory school in Togo and England’s University College London. A luxury apartment in London where Abdulmutallab lived has been searched by British authorities.

Before the Christmas Day arrest, Abdulmutallab’s father told officials in the US and Nigeria he feared his son had been “radicalised”.

University of Wollongong in Dubai vice-president Raymi van der Spek told The Associated Press on Monday that Abdulmutallab took classes for “about seven months” and was no longer a student at the facility.

The Dubai university was established in 1993 by the University of Wollongong and boasts 3,500 students representing 108 nationalities.

It offers specialist undergraduate and postgraduate programs in the areas of business and information technology.

On its website, the University of Wollongong in Dubai promotes how it “is a relatively simple process” for students to transfer to the University of Wollongong in Australia.
Source: NewsMail