DETROIT, Jan. 17 (UPI) -- A court-appointed attorney for the alleged Nigerian "underwear bomber" has been accused by prosecutors of exceeding his bounds in requesting documents.
Anthony Chambers, a prominent criminal defense attorney in Detroit who is defending Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, is "seeking to do too much," federal prosecutors said in documents filed in U.S. District Court.
Specifically, federal prosecutors question Chambers' request for the federal defender's complete file on Abdulmutallab, the Detroit Free Press reported Monday.
Chambers says the file contains crucial expert witness testimony and is "essential and critical to the defense."
The problem with that, prosecutors say, is that Chambers is only standby counsel to Abdulmutallab, who has repeatedly insisted on representing himself.
The federal defender's office represented Abdulmutallab until he fired his court-appointed lawyers in September.
If Chambers wants the federal defender's file, prosecutors argue, then Abdulmutallab, acting as his own lawyer, must be the one to request it.
U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds appointed Chambers in October to serve as standby counsel to Abdulmutallab, ruling the defendant has no experience in U.S. law.
Prosecutors allege Abdulmutallab trained in Yemen for a suicide mission in which he attempted to blow up a Detroit-bound plane on Christmas Day 2009 using explosives hidden in his underwear.
