Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s office has said this week that they had information on the man who attempted to blow up a Detroit bound plane. They say they passed on data on the Nigerian national, but did not register him as a high risk suspect. The Nigerian, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was included on a list that was sent to the US about people who had made contact with extremists living in the UK. However, British officials believe he was turned into an extremist himself after he left the country in 2008.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was on a flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas Day when he allegedly tried to blow it up. He collected some kind of explosive materials from Yemen and managed to smuggle them from Nigeria to Amsterdam and on to Detroit without being caught. Security at airports across the world has now been heavily beefed up as passengers are subjected to full body pat down and hand luggage physically searched.

British security officials have also explained that they knew Abdulmutallab was in contact with extremists soon after his arrival to Britain in 2005, but did not see the individual as a threat enough to warn the US about him. Some information was shared with the US on the suspect, but he was simply not seen as an immediate risk. The US President, Barack Obama, has ordered a review of security asking how this man slipped through the net designed to catch people like him before they strike.