A 23-year-old Nigerian man charged with trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner on Christmas Day claims he obtained explosive chemicals and a syringe that were sewn into his underwear from a bomb expert in Yemen associated with Al Qaeda.

US District Judge Paul Borman read the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab who comes from a prominent Nigerian family, his charges Saturday in a room at the University of Michigan Medical Centre in Ann Arbor, where he is being treated for burns.