Airline Plot Trio Get Life Terms

Three men who plotted to blow up liquid bombs on flights from the UK to North America have been jailed for life, with minimum terms of up to 40 years. Ringleader Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 28, was jailed for at least 40 years. Plot "quartermaster" Assad Sarwar, 29, must serve at least 36 years, while Tanvir Hussain, 28, was jailed for at least 32 years at Woolwich Crown Court. Their aim was a terrorist outrage to "stand alongside" the 9/11 attacks on the US in history, the judge said. Mr Justice Henriques called the plot "the most grave and wicked conspiracy ever proven within this jurisdiction". Home Secretary Alan Johnson said the sentences "reflected the severity of this horrendous plot to kill and maim thousands of people". "I'm very pleased the jury gave a sentence that was proportionate to this potential crime," he said. "Our police and our national security service is a national asset, they've proven that again today." The trial heard that at the time of his arrest, Ahmed Ali, of Walthamstow, east London, had identified seven US and Canada-bound flights that were to be attacked within a two-and-a-half-hour period. "I'm satisfied that there is every likelihood that this plot would have succeeded but for the intervention of the police and the security service," he said. "Had this conspiracy not been interrupted, a massive loss of life would almost certainly have resulted - and if the detonation was over land, the number of victims would have been even greater still." The judge said that the plot had "reached an advanced stage in its development", with the men in possession of enough chemicals to produce 20 detonators. The flights due to be targeted were from London's Heathrow airport to San Francisco, Washington, New York, Chicago, Toronto and Montreal. Sarwar had obtained bomb ingredients which he kept at his home and in woods in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire. A flat in the Walthamstow area of north-east London became the men's bomb factory, where they mixed chemicals that they planned to take onto planes in ordinary sports drinks bottles stored within hand luggage. The plot prompted the biggest terror investigation ever mounted in the UK.