Charles Martel
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The officers decided the suspect needed immediate medical attention, and an ambulance crew took him to the burn unit at the University of Michigan Medical Center.
Along the way, Abdulmutallab repeatedly made incriminating statements to the CBP officers guarding him. He told them he had acted alone on the plane and had been trying to take down the aircraft.
Abdulmutallab arrived at the hospital just before 2 p.m. Still under guard, Abdulmutallab told a doctor treating him that he had tried to trigger the explosive. The Nigerian said it didn't cause a blast, but instead began popping and ignited a fire on his groin and legs.
FBI agents from the Detroit bureau arrived at the hospital around 2:15 p.m., and were briefed by the Customs agents and officers as Abdulmutallab received medical treatment.
Shortly after 3:30 p.m., FBI agents began interviewing the suspect in his hospital room, joined by a CBP officer and an Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent.
The suspect spoke openly, said one official, talking in detail about what he'd done and the planning that went into the attack. Other counterterrorism officials speaking on condition of anonymity said it was during this questioning that he admitted he had been trained and instructed in the plot by al-Qaida operatives in Yemen.
The interview lasted about 50 minutes. Before they began questioning Abdulmutallab, the FBI agents decided not to give him his Miranda warnings providing his right to remain silent.
He's singing like a canary and....
There was no effort to call in the elite federal High-Value Interrogation Group, a special unit of terror specialists that the Obama administration said early last year it would create to deal with terror suspects captured abroad.
Last week, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair said the unit should have been called in after Abdulmatullab's arrest. But even if federal officials wanted to expand its use to domestic cases, the special team was not ready for action, FBI Director Robert Mueller told Congress last week.
Based on the instructions from Washington, the second interview was conducted by different FBI agents and others with the local joint terrorism task force.
Such a move is not unusual in cases where investigators or prosecutors want to protect themselves from challenges to evidence or statements.
By bringing in a so-called "clean team" of investigators to talk to the suspect, federal officials aimed to ensure that Abdulmutallab's statements would still be admissible if the failure to give him his Miranda warning led a judge to rule out the use of his first admissions.
Let me guess......
In the end, though, the "clean team" of interrogators did not prod more revelations from the suspect.
Having rested and received more extensive medical treatment, Abdulmutallab was told of his right to remain silent and right to have an attorney.
He remained silent.
Wouldn't anyone?
AP Exclusive: The Christmas attack interrogation - Yahoo! News
AP wire.