No death penalty in Britain, of course, so they were jailed for a minimum of forty years each, the equivalent of life sentences: Four jailed for botched ‘al Qaeda’ London bomb plot.

LONDON (Reuters) - A British judge jailed four men for 40 years each on Wednesday for attempting to carry out suicide bombings on London’s transport system in a plot he said had clearly been masterminded by al Qaeda.

Judge Adrian Fulford told the four he had no doubt their botched attempt to bomb three underground trains and a bus on July 21, 2005, two weeks after 52 people were killed in similar attacks, had been directed by Osama bin Laden’s group. The second wave of attacks only failed because, although the detonators fired, the bombs did not explode.

“This was a viable, indeed a very nearly successful, attempt at mass murder,” Fulford told the court. “These were not truly isolated events but … coordinated and connected in that I have no doubt they were part of an al Qaeda inspired and controlled sequence of attacks.”

The men, Muktah Said Ibrahim, Yassin Hassan Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussein Osman, all Muslims of African origin, were found guilty on Monday of conspiracy to murder. Sentencing them, Fulford ruled they should stay in jail for a minimum of 40 years, the maximum sentence he said he could impose in light of other terrorism cases.

The men looked impassive as the sentences were handed down. As they left the courtroom, Osman clutched a Koran to his chest.