Combination image of undated handout photographs made available by the Metropolitan Police in London yesterday shows (from left) Jawad Akbar, Anthony Garcia, Omar Khyam, Waheed Mahmood and Salahuddin Amin. A judge jailed five "cruel and ruthless" Britons for life yesterday for plotting al Qaia-inspired bomb attacks on targets across Britain, ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre. After the longest-ever terrorism trial in British history, the men were found guilty of plotting to cause an explosion likely to endanger life. Two other suspects were cleared of all charges.

LONDON (Reuters):

A judge jailed five "cruel and ruthless" Britons for life yesterday for plotting al Qaida-inspired bomb attacks on targets across Britain ranging from nightclubs to trains and a shopping centre.

The trial revealed that police tracking the gang had established links between them and British Islamists who killed 52 people in suicide bombings in London on July 7, 2005.

"The sentences are for life. Release is not a foregone conclusion. Some or all of you may never be released," judge Michael Astill said at London's Old Bailey court.

"You have received and taken advantage of the benefits that this society offered you, yet you sought to destroy it," he said after one of the longest jury deliberations in British history.

The gang planned to use 600 kg (1,300 lb) of ammonium nitrate fertiliser to make bombs in revenge for Britain's support for the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, prosecutors said.

Rejected demand for enquiry

Britain's opposition parties and survivors of the July 7 bombings demanded a public inquiry into the deadly attacks, but Britain's Home Secretary (Interior Minister) John Reid dismissed the call, saying it was not the right time.

""I do not believe a public inquiry is the correct response at this time because it would divert the energies and efforts of so many in the security services and the police," he said.

Spies had seen Mohammed Sidique Khan, the suspected ringleader of the July 7 bombings, and accomplice Shehzad Tanweer with the men in the days leading up to their arrest, but discounted them because they were not involved in the plot.

"We were deceived," said Jacqui Putnam, who was on board an underground train blown up on July 7.

"We were told that these four characters were not affiliated with alQaida and were working entirely independently. We were told that, when it was known that they weren't - because they had been under surveillance."