US: 'Underwear Bomber' sues US Justice Department over rights

A Nigerian man serving life sentences for trying to set off a bomb in his underwear on a plane on Christmas Day 2009 is suing the US Justice Department for denying his free speech and religious rights. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab received multiple life sentences after the attempted attack on the Amsterdam to Detroit flight, which he called part of his "religious duty" as a Muslim to wage jihad against the United States. In a lawsuit filed in a Colorado federal court, he said authorities in the federal maximum security prison where he is being held were violating his constitutional rights by not allowing him to communicate with the outside world or practice his religion as a Muslim, court documents showed. Abdulmutallab, 30, was being held in long-term solitary confinement, the lawsuit said. It accused staff at the US Penitentiary-Administrative Maximum Facility in Florence, Colorado of repeatedly force feeding him during a hunger strike using "excessively and unnecessarily painful" methods. Abdulmutallab also asserted the Justice Department went too far in restricting his communication, including not allowing him to talk to his nieces and nephews since his solitary confinement was based on a special administrative measures imposed on national security grounds. White supremacist inmates were also permitted to harass him during prayer times, according to the lawsuit.<br/>