JURIST - Paper Chase: UK court affirms convictions in fertilizer bomb plot case

[JURIST] A three-judge panel from the British Court of Appeal [official website] on Wednesday denied the appeals of five men convicted on charges of conspiring to cause death and suffering through a plan to detonate bombs in a crowded area near London. Each of the men was sentenced [JURIST report, AFP report] to at least 35 years in prison after a 14-month terrorism trial [JURIST report]. The trial revealed that some of the convicted men met two of the suicide bombers [MI5 press release] who carried out the attack on the London transit system [JURIST news archive] on July 7, 2005, although that fact was kept from the jury so as not to influence their deliberations. AP has more. BBC News has additional coverage.

Key to the Crown's case against the men was the testimony of Mohammed Babar [BBC profile], an American citizen of Pakistani descent who worked with the defendants and later pleaded guilty to terrorism charges [CNN report] in New York in 2004. Mohammed Momin Khawaja [CBC backgrounder], who was arrested and charged [JURIST report] in connection with the operation in Canada and is currently awaiting trial there, was identified at trial as another co-conspirator.

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