By AP
DETROIT –
A Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas appeared in court for a 15-minute hearing without his four-member defense team.
Umar Farouk represented himself at a pretrial hearing Thursday in Detroit federal court. He was accompanied by standby counsel Anthony Chambers, who can give advice.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds set the next hearing for Jan. 12.
In September, the 24-year-old suggested he wanted to plead guilty to some charges.
He's charged with attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253, an Amsterdam-to-Detroit plane. Abdulmutallab is accused of trying to set off explosives hidden in his underwear.
He's being held at a federal prison in Milan, Mich.