A London jury has found three men guilty of conspiring to kill people using homemade liquid explosives.

However, after 50 hours of deliberations the jury couldn't agree on whether the men intended to use the bombs on planes.

The jurors had been told by prosecutors that the plotters planned to kill thousands of people by smuggling liquid explosives onto jetliners leaving Heathrow airport, then to detonate them while in the air.

Abdulla Ahmed Ali, Assad Sarwar and Tanvir Hussain were all found guilty of conspiring to kill "persons unknown."

The men argued they didn't intend to kill, but intended to carry out a bloodless attack that would attract attention to their cause -- anger over British and American involvement in Afghanistan and Iraq.

"It was childish, it was stupid, but it is not murder," the lawyer, Nadine Radford, said during a July hearing.

Evidence shown during the trial included suicide videos of the men saying they intended to carry out attacks.

The alleged targets were Air Canada flights to Montreal and Toronto, and flights by United Airlines and American Airlines to several U.S. cities.

Prosecutor Peter Wright told the court that police found a computer memory stick in Ali's pocket with details of flights from London's Heathrow Airport to Chicago, New York, Boston, Denver, Miami and Montreal.

The three men convicted Monday were among eight British Muslims accused of taking part in the plot.

The jury failed to come to a verdict on four other defendants. An eighth was found not guilty.

CTV's London Bureau Chief Tom Kennedy said it is unclear whether legal proceedings will continue against the four defendants.

"The major question mark is still what does the prosecution service do now. There are still four individuals the jury was not able to reach a verdict on, so it's quite possible the whole legal process into this really enormous terror investigation may not be over yet," Kennedy told Â鶹ӰÊÓnet.

The uncovering of the plot in August 2006 caused chaos in airports around the world with tough new restrictions put in place over the amount of liquid passengers could bring on board.

Many of those restrictions are still in place.

With files from The Associated Press