Three men were convicted yesterday of plotting to bomb London's transport system on July 21, 2005, in a botched attempt to replicate suicide bombings that had killed 52 people two weeks earlier.
Police said the men would have caused carnage on a similar scale to the earlier attacks. Although the detonators on their makeshift bombs fired, the main charges failed to explode.
The attacks provoked more panic and fear in the British capital, reeling from the aftermath of the devastating July 7 bombings on London's transport system.
The men -- Muktah Said Ibrahim, Yassin Hassan Omar and Ramzi Mohammed -- were found guilty of conspiracy to murder at Woolwich Crown Court in London.
The jury is still considering verdicts against three other men.
The convicts said the bombings were a hoax, not designed to kill but to be a protest against Britain's involvement in Iraq.
Eritrean-born Ibrahim, the self-confessed bomb-maker and the plot's mastermind, said the bombs were deliberately designed not to explode but only to go "pop."
Also see story:
UK slow to fight terror: Interpol
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