Prosecutors are to seek a retrial of seven British men who were accused of a plot to blow up planes flying from the UK to North America with liquid bombs.

Three men were found guilty of conspiracy to murder but the jury was unable to decide whether they and four other men had planned to target planes.

The men had denied plotting Low hopes ...
Gaddafi 'to hand out oil money' ... to bring down planes with home-made bombs disguised as soft drinks.

The Crown Prosecution Service will put a retrial application before a court.

The CPS said the seven men should face a retrial on every count the jury, which was discharged on Monday, had failed to agree on.

Director of public prosecutions Sir Ken Macdonald QC said: "This will include a count that each defendant conspired to detonate improvised explosive devices on transatlantic passenger aircraft.

"We shall be returning to court to make this application in due course."

On Monday after a five-month trial at Woolwich Crown Court, London, Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain were found guilty of conspiracy to murder.

But the jury was unable to reach a verdict on whether they and Ibrahim Savant, Arafat Khan, Waheed Zaman and Umar Islam conspired to detonate explosives on aircraft.

The jurors also failed to decide whether Mr Savant, Mr Khan, Mr Zaman and Mr Islam were guilty of conspiracy to murder and the four could be retried on that count.

All seven had pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit public nuisance.

The court heard prosecutors allege the men were planning to carry liquid explosives on to planes at Heathrow Airport, knowing the devices would evade airport security checks.

Police said the plot had been inspired by al-Qaeda in Pakistan.

But in their defence, the men, who had recorded videos denouncing Western foreign policy, said they had only planned to cause a political spectacle and not to kill anyone.

Sweeping airport restrictions on liquids in hand luggage were brought in following the arrests in August 2006.

An eighth defendant was cleared of all charges.

(BBC)

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