A lengthy trial centering on what Scotland Yard called a plot to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners ended Monday when the jury convicted three of eight defendants of conspiracy to commit murder.But the jury failed to reach verdicts on the more serious charge of a conspiracy to have suicide bombers detonate soft-drink bottles filled with liquid explosives aboard seven airliners headed for the United States and Canada.
The failure to obtain convictions on the plane-bombing charge was a blow to counterterrorism officials in London and Washington, who had described the scheme as potentially the most devastating act of terrorism since the Sept. 11 attacks seven years ago this week. British and American experts had said that the plot had all the signs of an operation by Al Qaeda, and that
it was conceived and organized in Pakistan.
But the case was hampered from the beginning, prosecutors said, by an investigation that was cut short, by the conflicting demands of intelligence agencies, and by problems with introducing evidence in the courtroom. To protect sources and methods, the prosecution was unable to introduce material from British or foreign intelligence agencies. In addition, Britain does not allow information in court that has been gathered from domestic wiretaps. The haste in making sweeping arrests made it hard for prosecutors to persuade the jury that the bomb plot had reached the stage at which an attack on airliners was imminent.
{What a shame}
Partly as a result,
prosecutors never convinced the jury that the suspects were prepared to strike immediately, or even that they had chosen planes as their targets. Nor did they convict a man whom they had accused of having links to Al Qaeda in Pakistan.
Britain’s Crown Prosecution Service said it might decide to call for a retrial of the case if it decides it might win convictions on the most serious charges. A decision on that is expected within weeks. In addition, a number of other suspects will face trial related to the plot.
After three months of evidence, the case against the eight men —
all British Muslims aged 24 to 30, and six with family roots in Pakistan — went to the jury in late July. A two-week holiday break ordered by the judge was followed by what appeared to have been an impasse of more than three weeks among jurors on the most serious charges, even after the judge, David Calvert-Smith, allowed the jury to reach verdicts with at least 10 of the 12 jurors in agreement.
By exactly that margin, the jurors on Monday returned guilty verdicts on the murder conspiracy charges against three men who prosecutors said had been at the heart of the plot: Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, a husband and father who studied computer systems engineering; Assad Sarwar, 28, a college dropout
who learned how to make the liquid hydrogen peroxide bomb in Pakistan; and Tanvir Hussain, 27, who helped in the purchase of materials and in making the suicide videos.
The defendants planned to drain 17-ounce plastic sports drink bottles by puncturing a tiny hole in the bottom, prosecutors said, then refilling the bottles with an explosive mix of concentrated hydrogen peroxide and food coloring to give the appearance of the original beverage.
The prosecution said the bottles were to have been resealed with instant glue, and then, once the bombers were aboard the flights, connected with detonators made of AA batteries filled with the explosive HMTD and disposable cameras acting as triggers.
But the jury failed to reach verdicts against seven of the eight men on the most serious charge, that of conspiring “to murder persons unknown by the detonation of improvised explosive devices on board trans-Atlantic passenger aircraft.”
Similarly, it failed to reach any decision on murder conspiracy charges against four other men described by prosecutors as foot soldiers in the plot:
Ibrahim Savant, 27, a convert to Islam with Anglo-Indian roots,
{Islam has the power to make neo-converts the most radical terrorists} who worked in his British mother’s bookkeeping business; Umar Islam, 30, a convert and former Rastafarian of Caribbean origin; Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, a newly engaged former cellphone shop employee; and Waheed Zaman, 24, a former biomedical college student who once led his university’s Islamic organization.
Seven of the eight defendants pleaded guilty to conspiracy to create a public nuisance with their plan to produce and distribute the videos, and face long prison sentences.
Some of the six who were accused of being suicide bombers
had not obtained the “clean” passports, free of suspicious foreign stamps from Pakistan 
and elsewhere, that the prosecution said had been part of the planning for the attacks.
British officials said a crucial role in the suspected plot was played by Mohammed Gulzar, 26, who declared his innocence throughout, and was the only defendant to be acquitted of all charges on Monday. 
British intelligence and law enforcement officials say they believe that
Mr. Gulzar was the facilitator between the plotters in London and Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, and pushed his co-conspirators to move forward more quickly with the attack.
The law enforcement officials said
Mr. Gulzar was a close friend of Mr. Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani origin who was the main figure at the Pakistan end of the plot, according to British, American and Pakistani officials.
The officials said Mr. Rauf and Mr. Gulzar fled Britain for Pakistan after the murder of Mr. Rauf’s uncle in Birmingham in April 2002. But
Mr. Rauf was arrested in Pakistan in August 2006, forcing the police in Britain to move against other figures in the plot sooner than they had wanted, and, in the end, weakening the prosecutors’ case. A further blow came when Mr. Fauf, facing extradition to Britain in the murder case, escaped from the Pakistani police last December after entering a mosque for prayers.
Senior British and American officials have described Mr. Rauf as a protégé of Abu Faraj al-Libi, Qaeda’s director of operations until he was detained in Pakistan in 2005. After that, the officials said, operational control of the plot was taken over by Abu Ubaida al Masri, who was chief of operations for Al Qaeda until his death, the officials said.
British officials identified one of the people Mr. Gulzar met in South Africa and Britain as Mohammed Al Ghabra, suspected of being a Qaeda operative. The officials say he has been instrumental in arranging travel for prospective suicide bombers in Pakistan and Iraq.
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