Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian man accused of trying to blow up a plane traveling from Amsterdam to Detroit with a bomb in his underwear, has declared that a radical Islamic cleric killed by the U.S. military is alive.

"Anwar is alive," Abdulmutallab, 24, said Tuesday at the start of his federal trial on terrorism charges, Fox News reports. He was referring to American-born cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, killed by a joint CIA-U.S. military air strike in Yemen last week. 

Abdulmutallab is believed to have received coaching from Awlaki in his martyrdom attack on Northwest Airlines Flight 253 during Christmas of 2009.

Judge Nancy Edmunds denied his request to wear a "Yemeni belt with a dagger" in the courtroom, CBS reports.

Abdulmutallab, who has also previously told reporters they should stop reporting that Osama bin Laden was dead, is acting as his own attorney.

CBS reports:

He has pleaded not guilty to eight charges, including conspiracy to commit terrorism and attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction.

Well educated and from an upper class Nigerian family, he at first appeared "polite and studious in front of the judge and prospective jurors," the Guardian reports. He waited until his handcuffs were removed to lash out at the U.S.

"The mujahadeen will wipe out the U.S. — the cancer U.S.," Abdulmutallab said, referring to Muslim guerrilla fighters.