Father of Nigerian terror suspect asked to testify in US

The banker father of the young Nigerian national Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, who is charged with attempts of blowing up a US plane on Christmas, has been asked to testify before a key Congressional committee.

Senator John Kerry, chairman of the powerful Senate Foreign Relations Committee, wrote a letter in this regard to Alhaji Umaru Mutallab on January 7, who informed the US embassy in Nigeria in November about "radicalisation" of his son.

Mutallab's son failed in his bid to destroy a North West Airlines plane, carrying nearly 300 people on board, mid-air on December 25, when it was approaching Detroit.

In his letter, Kerry appreciated Mutallab's decision to inform the US Embassy in Nigeria about the radical views of his son.

Kerry said, Umaru Mutallab acted "in a heroic fashion by alerting US authorities of his concerns about his son's whereabouts and activities, and by seeking to disrupt what he believed could have been a dangerous situation."

"We would like to afford (Mutallab) the opportunity to discuss his experience with his son, and to provide his recommendations on the process by which he worked with the US authorities," Kerry wrote.