Three British Muslims sentenced in airline bomb plot

They were recruited by the ringleader of an al Qaeda-inspired plot to detonate home-made liquid bombs on trans-Atlantic airliners, were told they would serve minimum terms of 20 years.

Judge Timothy Holroyde told Woolwich Crown Court that they intended to kill "an uncertain but potentially large number of innocent men, women and children".

Mastermind Abdulla Ahmed Ali had developed a home-made hydrogen peroxide bomb which could be disguised as a soft drink to be carried through security and assembled afterwards.
Along with another man, he was found guilty of his role in the airline plot last year.

Ali recruited friends and associates to act as suicide bombers as they recorded martyrdom videos at a flat in Walthamstow, east London and singled out seven trans-Atlantic flights which departed within two and a half hours of each other as targets.

The trio were cleared by a jury of their role in target aircraft but found guilty at a retrial of plotting mass murder.

The verdicts bring to an end a sprawling series of trials following an August 2006 operation to smash the largest terrorist plot ever discovered in Britain.

Savant, Khan and Zaman showed no emotion as they were sentenced. All three had denied a charge of conspiracy to murder.

The men were convicted last week.