Christmas aircraft bombing suspect talked and talked

He spoke openly about what he had done and why, and provided valuable intelligence, US officials said in a series of interviews which spelled out for the first time the details of Abdulmutallab's arrest and questioning on December 25.

Badly burned and bleeding, the suspect tried one last gambit as he was taken from the plane: He claimed there was another bomb hidden on board, officials said.

There was no second bomb, a search revealed. But the British- educated Nigerian suspect's threat set off a series of conversations that are now the subject of a fierce political debate over the right way to handle terrorism suspects.

The bomb had severely burned Abdulmutallab but he was still conscious. As he was taken from the scene, federal agents repeatedly interviewed him or heard him speak to others. But when they read him his legal rights nearly 10 hours after the incident, he went silent.

Since the attempted bombing, several prominent politicians have argued he should have been placed immediately in military custody.

Officials said investigators at the scene never discussed turning the suspect over to military authorities and their accounts show that the FBI turned to its own local expert counterterror interrogators, rather than get bureau personnel to fly in from Washington or elsewhere.

Shortly after noon US time (5pm UK time) on Christmas Day, federal agents were notified that Northwest Airlines flight 253 had arrived at the Detroit airport from Amsterdam, with a passenger who had lit an explosive device on the aircraft.

After being restrained and stripped bare by fellow passengers and crew, Abdulmutallab was handed over to Customs and Border Protection officers and police.

The officers and an ambulance crew took him to the burns unit at the University of Michigan Medical Centre.

Along the way, Abdulmutallab repeatedly made incriminating statements to his guards.

When interviewed, he spoke openly, said one official, talking in detail about what he had done and the planning that went into the attack. Other counterterrorism officials said it was during this questioning that he admitted he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.

Since the incident, Republican politicians have argued that the Obama administration mishandled the case by not considering putting Abdulmutallab in military custody – part of a larger argument about whether terror suspects should face military justice.