Doctor gets 32 years in car-bomb case

LONDON, Dec. 17 (UPI) -- An Iraqi doctor convicted of plotting to car-bomb locations in London and Glasgow was sentenced Wednesday to at least 32 years in prison by a jury in London.

The jury at Woolwich Crown Court found Bilal Abdulla, 29, guilty of conspiracy to murder and to cause explosions at the end of a nine-week trial Tuesday and was sentenced Wednesday, The Times of London reported.

Mohammed Asha, another doctor, was found innocent of both charges. British officials said they will attempt to deport Asha to his native Jordan, a move Asha's attorney said he would fight.

Prosecutors had said Abdulla came to Britain to open a "new front" in the Islamist jihad after he was refused permission to carry out a suicide attack in Baghdad, prosecutors said during the trial.

The presiding judge called Abdulla a "religious extremist and a bigot" who held the most extreme of Islamist views, the newspaper said.

Prosecutors said Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed tried and failed to detonate cars packed with gas canisters and nails outside a London nightclub and then rammed an explosives-laden Jeep into Glasgow Airport in Scotland in June 2007. Asha allegedly was the money man and provided advice. Ahmed died of burns he sustained when ramming the vehicle into the airport terminal.