Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab  given a mandatory life sentence Thursday for trying to blow up a  packed jetliner with a bomb sewn into his underwear. People aboard the  flight testified that the failed attack had disturbed their sleep and  travels for more than two years.
 Farouk Abdulmutallab  was the same remorseless man who four months ago pleaded guilty to all  charges related to Northwest Airlines Flight 253. He seemed to relish  the mandatory sentence and defended his actions as rooted in the Muslim  holy book, the Quran.
"Mujahideen are proud to kill in the name of God," he said. "Today is a day of victory."
Had the bomb not fizzled, nearly 300 people aboard the flight would probably have been killed.
The  case stirred renewed fears that terrorists could still bring down an  American jetliner more than eight years after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror  attacks, and it accelerated installation of body scanners at U.S.  airports.
Before Thursday's sentencing, four passengers and a crew  member from the flight told U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds that they  have struggled to live and travel normally since the incident on  Christmas Day 2009.
During their remarks, Abdulmutallab appeared disinterested, rarely looking up from his seat just a few feet (meters) away.
Abdulmutallab  "has never expressed doubt or regret or remorse about his mission,"  Edmunds said. "In contrast, he sees that mission as divinely inspired  and a continuing mission."
Life in prison is a "just punishment  for what he has done," the judge said. "The defendant poses a  significant ongoing threat to the safety of American citizens  everywhere."
Abdulmutallab, the 25-year-old, European-educated son  of a wealthy Nigerian  banker, tried to set off the bomb minutes before the  Amsterdam-to-Detroit flight landed.
The government says he first  performed a cleansing ritual in the lavatory — brushing his teeth and  perfuming himself — then returned to his seat. The device didn't work as  planned, but it still produced smoke, flame and panic.
He  was subdued by fellow passengers and quickly confessed after getting  hauled off the plane. He told authorities that he trained in Yemen under  the eye of Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric and one of  the best-known al-Qaida figures.
The  judge allowed prosecutors to show a video of the FBI demonstrating the  power of the explosive material called PETN found in Abdulmutallab's  underwear. As the video played, Abdulmutallab, who was wearing a white  skull cap and oversized prison T-shirt, twice said loudly, "Allahu  akbar," or God is great.