World Jul. 15, 2008 - 06:10AM JST ( 7 )

LONDON —

Three British Muslims accused of plotting suicide attacks on transatlantic flights pleaded guilty here Monday to conspiring to cause explosions.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27, made their pleas as their trial at the top-security Woolwich Crown Court in southeast London was drawing to a close.

The trio and two other defendants, Ibrahim Savant, 27, and Umar Islam, 30, also pleaded guilty to conspiring to cause public nuisance by publishing videos threatening suicide bomb attacks.

But a jury must still decide if the five men and three other defendants were guilty of conspiring to commit mass murder by smuggling home-made liquid bombs onto passenger jets.

The defendants, all from in and around London, deny two charges of conspiracy to murder between Jan 1 and Aug 11, 2006.

The eight, whose arrest prompted tough limits on liquids in hand baggage on planes, targeted seven flights from London’s Heathrow airport to New York, Washington, Chicago, San Francisco, Toronto and Montreal, the jury has heard.

They aimed to use hydrogen peroxide liquid explosives injected into the base of plastic soft drinks bottles to cause “a civilian death toll from an act of terrorism on an almost unprecedented scale,” prosecutor Peter Wright said.

They were “not long off” putting their plan into action and had talked of up to 18 different suicide bombers targeting seven, or even more flights operated by United Airlines, American Airlines and Air Canada, he said.

Summing up the prosecution case Monday, Wright said the eight accused wanted to achieve “immortality” and be “lionized” by other Islamic extremists for a deadly attack which would “shock the world”.

“You can be sure of the involvement of each of these men in a plot to murder as many civilian passengers as possible upon as many civilian aircraft as possible,” he told jurors.

“And that some of these men were prepared to lose their life in achieving it whilst others were prepared to facilitate them in doing so in pursuit of a common goal.

“Each was prepared to kill and to do so on a wholly indiscriminate basis, irrespective of age, belief, sex and to do so without the slightest blink of an eye.”

Wright said the coordinated attacks were intended to “strike a blow on behalf of radicalized Islamists the world over.”

In their defense, Ali and Sarwar said they had planned to record a documentary highlighting injustices against Muslims in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon.

Those who recorded the videos said they were acting the role of violent hate-filled extremists.

The jury is expected to retire next week.

Wire reports