Judge asked to allow underwear bomb model

DETROIT, Sept. 23 (UPI) -- Prosecutors asked a judge to let jurors see a replica of the bomb authorities say the underwear bomber used to try to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner in 2009.

The federal prosecutors, in court papers filed Thursday, asked U.S. District Judge Nancy Edmunds to allow them to put on a demonstration showing how the bomb was supposed to work, the Detroit Free Press reported.

Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab is accused of using a bomb in his underwear in a Christmas Day 2009 attempt to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 with 300 people aboard.

"Abdulmutallab's bomb was essentially a plastic bag containing PETN, a highly explosive" device, prosecutors wrote.

The prosecutors want to show jurors how PETN explodes in a plastic bag.

The request came as the prosecutors and Abdulmutallab, who is representing himself but has a standby lawyer to help at trial, get set to pick a jury Oct. 4.

Also Thursday, prosecutors requested they be allowed to admit as evidence part of a video produced by al-Qaida titled "America and the Final Trap."

It includes Osama bin Laden and other al-Qaida members praising Abdulmutallab and an excerpt from a martyrdom video by Abdulmutallab.