A British court jailed five men for up to 17 years today for helping would-be suicide bombers in London in 2005.
Sentencing them at Kingston Crown Court, Judge Paul Worsley said each of the defendants helped the four men who were eventually jailed for the failed plot on July 21, 2005 to temporarily escape capture.
The head of the counter-terrorismat London's Metropolitan Police, Peter Clarke, also denounced the men for not telling the authorities about the plot, which only failed when the homemade devices did not detonate.
A jury earlier found the five, including the brothers of two of the failed bombers, guilty of providing safe houses, passports as well as clothing and food as they hid from police. They were sentenced to between seven and 17 years.
Siraj Ali, Muhedin Ali, Ismail Abdurahman, Wahbi Mohammed, and Abdul Sherif, all from London, were convicted on 22 charges of failing to disclose information about terrorism and assisting an offender.
The attacks came exactly two weeks after July 7 attacks in which four suicide bombers launched simultaneous attacks, killing themselves and 52 other people.
