British Would-Be Bombers Sentenced To Life In Prison
Posted July 11, 2007 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Four men convicted of a series of attempted bombings in 2005 were sentenced to life in prison on Wednesday. A British judge says the four men, Kutar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman, will not be eligible for parole for at least 40 years.
In an eerie mirror of the deadly terrorist explosions that ground transit in London to a halt and killed 52 commuters on July 7, 2005 , the men had planned to bomb transit systems on July 21.
For reasons that may never be known, the bombs never went off, although experts say the explosive devices were viable and would have caused tremendous damage and loss of life.
The men continue to claim the bombs were planned as duds and as a protest to the war in Iraq , but judge Fulford says the men knew exactly what they were doing.
“”This was a viable, indeed a very nearly successful, attempt at mass murder,” says the British Judge. “The family and friends of the dead and the injured, the hundreds, indeed thousands, captured underground in terrifying circumstances, the smoke, the screams of the wounded and the dying — this each defendant knew.”
The men planned to bomb subways and busses and one man left a bomb at a city park. It is believed the men were trained and sent by al Qaida as a parallel team to the men who executed the July 7 attacks.
Two more men, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu and Adel Yahya will be retried after the jury failed to reach a verdict.
British Bombing Suspects Convicted
