LONDON - A jury in Britain started deliberating Monday in the case of eight men accused of plotting to blow up at least seven transatlantic airliners bound for Canada and the United States.
The men planned to attack Air Canada, United Airlines and American Airlines flights at the height of the 2006 summer vacation season, prosecutor Peter Wright told jurors during the case, which began in April.
All the suspects deny the most serious of the charges, which include conspiracy to murder. Their lawyers say the never meant to kill anyone, but planned a publicity stunt to gain attention.
Wright said the men planned to assemble bombs in airplane toilets using hydrogen peroxide-based explosives smuggled on board inside soda bottles.
The case led to tight new restrictions on the amount of liquids and gels passengers can carry on to flights. The new rules caused huge disruptions to British airports and hundreds of flights were grounded across Europe when police arrested the suspects in August 2006.
Wright earlier acknowledged that no specific date had been chosen for the attacks when the men were arrested, but insisted they were close to mounting the strikes.
"These men were almost ready to put the plot into practice ... the disaster they contemplated was not long off," he told London's Woolwich Crown Court.
Details of seven daily flights from London's Heathrow airport to Toronto, Montreal, Chicago, New York, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. were stored on a computer memory stick and were intended to be the group's targets, prosecutors said.
All but two of the group recorded so-called "martyrdom" videos, denouncing western policies in Iraq and Afghanistan in videotaped monologues.
Ahmed Abdullah Ali, the alleged ringleader, said the group's planned attacks would be revenge for U.S. and British military intervention in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"I say to the nonbelievers, as you bomb, you will be bombed. As you kill, you will be killed," said alleged plotter Umar Islam on his tape. Islam is a Muslim convert previously known as Brian Young.
Lawyers for the men said they were making a documentary protesting the West's actions in Afghanistan and Iraq, rather than planning to attack planes. They said the group planned to cause a minor explosion at London's Houses of Parliament or at Heathrow airport, and to release propaganda videos.
All eight men, several of whom have family ties to Pakistan, deny charges of conspiracy to murder and a charge of planning to detonate explosives on board an aircraft. Both charges carry maximum sentences of life imprisonment.
Ali, Assad Sarwar, 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27, have pleaded guilty to lesser charges, including conspiracy to cause explosions. The trio and two other men, Ibrahim Savant, 27, and Islam, 30, also admit a charge of conspiring to cause a public nuisance.
The other accused men are: Mohammed Gulzar, 26; Arafat Waheed Khan, 26; Waheed Zaman, 23.
