Five men jailed for life over UK terror bomb plot

Five men have been jailed for life for planning a series of bomb attacks in the UK, which could potentially have killed hundreds.

Omar Khyam, 25, of Crawley, Sussex; Waheed Mahmood, 35, and Jawad Akbar, 23, both also from Crawley; Anthony Garcia, 25, of Barkingside, east London and Salahuddin Amin, 32, from Luton, Bedfordshire, were all found guilty of conspiring to cause explosions likely to endanger life between January 1, 2003 and March 31, 2004, at the Old Bailey on Monday.

Two men, Nabeel Hussain, 22, and Shujah Mahmood, 20, were found not guilty of the same charge.

Khyam and Garcia were also found guilty of possessing 600kg of ammonium nitrate fertiliser for terrorism, while Hussain was cleared.

Khyam was also found guilty of possessing aluminium powder for terrorism, while Shujah Mahmood was also cleared of that charge.

Khyam and Waheed Mahmood were sentenced to a minimum of 40 years, while Amin and Akbar were sentenced to a minimum of 35 years. Garcia received a minimum sentence of 20 years.

Khyam was also sentenced to a further eight years for the possession charges.

Judge Sir Michael Astill said that the men, all British citizens, had "betrayed this country that has given you every opportunity". He added that although minimum tariffs had been imposed all the men "may never be released", saying that it was "not a foregone conclusion".

The Home Secretary John Reid welcomed the verdicts.

During the year-long trial, the court heard how the gang planned to use home-made fertiliser bombs in a number of potentially deadly attacks at targets such as the Bluewater shopping centre in Kent and London's Ministry of Sound nightclub, as well as using the bombs to target the country's gas or electricity network.

The plot, which had been linked to a number of senior al-Qaeda figures in Pakistan and Afghanistan, was uncovered after staff at a storage facility in Hanwell, west London tipped off police about the 600g of ammonium nitrate that the group was keeping at the unit in 2004.

The court also heard that the five men had two other co-conspirators, Canadian Mohammed Momin Khawaja, who is currently awaiting trial in Canada and American Junaid Babar, who was arrested by the FBI and admitted his role in the plot, acting as a prosecution witness.

It has also now been revealed that Khyam had met with two of the July 7 suicide bombers - Mohammed Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer - while in the final stages of plotting the attacks, but neither Khan nor Tanweer were identified as priority targets for surveillance by MI5.

Both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats have called for an independent inquiry into this link, following the convictions, arguing that if Khan and Tanweer had been investigated, it may have been possible to prevent the July 7 attacks.

(KMcA/JM)