Somalis freed earlier airline bomb suspect

A Somali man who apparently tried to board an airliner with similar equipment to the Christmas Day bomber was cleared by a court, the country admitted today.

Somalia’s police commissioner Ali Hassan Loyan said the court threw out the charges against the man who tried to get on the plane in Mogadishu in November with chemicals and a syringe.

Gen. Loyan said he was acquitted on December 12, about two weeks before Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab tried to bring down a Detroit-bound flight using similar materials.

Gen. Loyan said given the attempted US attack, the Somali government was ready to redouble its cooperation with US officials since the materials used in both incidents appeared to be similar.

US officials began investigating the Somali case yesterday for any links with the attempted attack in Detroit.