LONDON — Three men accused of helping suicide bombers who killed 52 people in a 2005 attack on London’s transportation system were acquitted Tuesday of the most serious charges they faced, a second defeat for prosecutors in the case.
The jury found Waheed Ali, Mohammed Shakil and Sadeer Saleem not guilty of carrying out a reconnaissance mission to help the four bombers who boarded three subway trains and a bus with homemade explosives on July 7, 2005.
Ali and Shakil were convicted of conspiring to attend a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, a lesser charge, and were to be sentenced today.
The verdicts ended a three-month retrial of the men, whose previous proceedings last year resulted in a hung jury.
The three defendants have been the only people charged in the attacks. Under British double-jeopardy laws, any further trial of the same defendants would have to be based on new evidence, said a spokesperson for the Crown Prosecution Service, adding it was “technically possible but very rare.”
The accused, who come from the Beeston area of Leeds in northern England, all admitted to being friends of the four men who carried out the bombings but denied charges of conspiracy to cause an explosion. They were accused of scouting the capital for possible targets with two of the four bombers on a trip to London in late 2004.
