Islamic extremist Abdulla Ahmed Ali has been found guilty of conspiring to kill hundreds of people in a terrorist bombing campaign.
The 27-year-old was the leader of an east London al Qaida-inspired terror cell, a jury at Woolwich Crown Court found.
Ali and and co-defendants Assad Sarwar 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27, admitted plotting a series of small-scale headline-grabbing bomb attacks.
But the jury rejected Ali's claims he did not plan to kill or hurt anyone in the blasts. They found he intended to murder people using an ingenious form of hydrogen peroxide liquid bomb disguised in 500ml Lucozade or Oasis bottles.
Prosecutors said his gang, who met at Ali's Walthamstow flat, considered national infrastructure targets including gas terminals and oil refineries. Evidence revealed Canary Wharf, the Bacton gas terminal pipeline, various airports, the electricity grid and internet providers were studied.
Police said the plot was drawn up in Pakistan with detailed instructions passed to Ali during frequent trips to its lawless border with Afghanistan. Surveillance teams watched Ali on his return to Britain as he assembled his terror cell, gathered materials and identified targets.
But jurors were unable to reach verdicts on a charge that Ali and his co-defendents were responsible for an unprecedented airline bomb plot. The prosecution had alleged that they intended to target passenger jets flying from London to major North American cities with suicide attacks.In his defence, Ali said he wanted to create an internet documentary protesting against British foreign policy in Iraq, Afghanistan and Lebanon. He claimed the apparent suicide video, and those created by five of his co-defendants, were spoofs created to make the documentary more provocative.
The three men, plus co-defendants Ibrahim Savant, 27, Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, Waheed Zaman, 24, and Umar Islam, 30, also admitted conspiring to cause a public nuisance.
Sarwar and Tanvir were convicted alongside Ali of conspiracy to murder. The jury failed to reach verdicts on Savant, Khan, Zaman and Islam. An eighth man, Mohammed Gulzar, was found not guilty on all counts. Sentencing will take place at a later date.
