London Glasgow terrorist attacks: the men in the dock

* Bilal Abdulla used the white coat of an NHS doctor to hide his true identity as an Iraqi insurgent sent to Britain as a terrorist sleeper.

Born into a wealthy and renowned medical family, the 29-year-old was educated at Baghdad's top schools and lived in the prestigious Mansur neighbourhood.

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His parents dreamed he would follow in their footsteps by training abroad and bringing his expertise back to benefit his homeland.

But, unknown to them, devout Muslim Abdulla fostered a violent hatred of the West, fuelled by twisted fundamentalist ideals.

The accomplished Arabic scholar also hated other branches of his religion, branding the Shia minority a "growing cancer".

Inspired by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, he joined Sunni militia fighting rival Shia groups and coalition forces in Iraq.

Abdulla said fighting with insurgents was "the best and most rewarding days of my life", in one document recovered after his arrest.

But senior fighters realised his greatest weapon was the British passport in his pocket and sent him to Cambridge, where he still has relatives.

It was in the university town that he first began to plot secretly to bring car bombing tactics seen almost everyday in downtown Baghdad to Britain.

Abdulla recruited Indian engineering PhD student Kafeel Ahmed after the two men became close friends while working in Cambridge.

Even in Cambridge, among liberal educational circles, Abdulla made little effort to hide his extremist views.

He bullied other members of an email discussion group with bigoted abuse and threatened a guitar-playing flat mate with the memorable words "stop playing and start praying".

Counter terrorism police said Abdulla was the strategic director of the plot, choosing targets, identifying tactics and obtaining funding.

Ahmed was left to use his skills to research, design and build the complex mobile phone detonators and vehicle bombs.

The jury rejected Abdulla's extraordinary defence that he simply planned a series of bloodless fires aimed at highlighting the plight of his countrymen.

Prosecutors said he gave a "breath-takingly arrogant performance" in the witness box as he "lied from start to finish" in an "insulting" and "laughable" account.

In his will, addressed to Osama bin Laden, Abdulla made clear he wanted to kill British and American soldiers and said he was willing to target women and children.

The document, lovingly written over almost eight hours, revealed his thirst to "lick the blood" of Westerners and attack the "Kingdom of Evil".

He wrote that a population "busy with alcoholic drinking and with their intimate friends" could only be awoken "by the sound of booby trapped vehicles".

Abdulla wanted to use his education and contacts to mount a terrorist campaign that would throw Britain back into the fear and chaos of July 2005.

But when the West End bombs failed he left police a goldmine of evidence, including forensic traces and mobile phones, to bring him to justice.

As Abdulla realised his mission had failed, he dressed in a red and white headscarf for the final suicide attack on Glasgow Airport.

Witnesses described how he tried to hold people back "like a goalkeeper", shouting Allahu Akbar [God is great], as he waited for the burning vehicle to explode behind him.

In his eyes, Abdulla was an educated and distinguished champion of Iraq but ultimately he failed not only as a doctor, but as a terrorist.

* Kafeel Ahmed suffered critical burns after pouring petrol over his head while standing beside the burning wreckage of his car at Glasgow Airport.

It was the final desperate act of an Indian extremist whose dreams of a terrorist car bombing campaign had utterly failed.

When he died four weeks later the 28-year-old became the only casualty of a conspiracy intended to leave hundreds of innocent civilians dead.

No-one spoke on behalf of the engineering PhD student during the trial of his friends Bilal Abdulla and Mohammed Asha.

But evidence from his will, online chats, CCTV footage and forensic material from the bomb factory revealed he was a central figure in the plot.

As a former president of the Islamic society while at university in Belfast, Ahmed was deeply involved in political Islam.

He also shared a home with members of the radical fundamentalist group Hizb ut-Tahir while living in Cambridge.

Police in India also claimed he and his brother Sabeel had links to the missionary sect Tablighi Jamaat.

Ahmed drove one of the two Mercedes car bombs to London, purchased equipment and constructed the crucial mobile phone detonators.

The most damning material was found in his will in which he told his brother Sabeel how he had an opportunity of "hitting at the devil's place".

In it he wrote the "call of jihad" had been "loud and open" and he apologised to his mother for lying to her about his "project".

Ahmed was born into a large, wealthy medical family in Bangalore, India.

He studied mechanical engineering at university before attending Queen's College in Belfast to read a masters in aeronautical engineering between 2001 and 2003.

From there Ahmed went to Cambridge to undertake a three-year doctorate at the Anglia Ruskin University.

It was here Ahmed met the two defendants while living at a property in Gilbert Road owned by a charity called The Islamic Academy.

Friends remember how he was quiet, often sullen during prayer meetings in comparison to the outspoken and knowledgeable Abdulla.

Asha said he had a motorbike and wore leathers like a Bollywood actor. Ahmed looked down on the neurologist as a bookish swot.

Before Asha attended an important interview, he told him he was "deluded" and the result was in the "hands of God".

Ahmed was forced to return to India in June 2005 because of a family illness but returned to the UK twice in September 2006 and May 2007.

While overseas, Ahmed's plotting with Abdulla was revealed in series of late night internet conversations recovered from a laptop computer.

They revealed the two men discussing their terrorist plans, using in thinly veiled code about plans, projects and timetables.

At one point, Ahmed wrote: Bro, inshallah [God willing], I think we are gonna start experiments sometime soon." Abdulla replied: "Oh cool" and added a smiley face symbol.

Ahmed was extremely security conscious and feared the plotters would be traced by the police or MI5.

But despite his meticulous preparations the West End bombs failed because of a simple error - a loose connection.

The failure left Ahmed with no option but suicide.

One off-duty police officer described how Ahmed lay on the floor, chanting Islamic prayers, after setting fire to himself at the airport.

Pc Stewart Ferguson said: "He had his hands in the air lying back chanting, but the only phrase I could make out was 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great]."

* The high-flying career of brilliant Jordanian neurologist Mohammed Asha came crashing down to earth on the day of the Glasgow Airport attack.

The 28-year-old was stopped by armed police on the M6 motorway and dragged from his car as he travelled to a jewellers with his wife ahead of their wedding anniversary.

Hours later, the doctor wept as he was confronted for the first time with his suspected involvement in the car bomb conspiracy.

At Paddington Green police station he told detectives Abdulla had betrayed their friendship. He said: "It's just - I think I've been a fool all the time."

Dr Asha was caught up in the counter terrorist dragnet into the British car bomb plot because of his close friendship with the Iraqi.

Since they first met in January 2005 the two men forged a close friendship, meeting regularly and exchanging phone calls as they pressed ahead with their NHS careers.

Dr Asha knew Abdulla harboured deep anger against the West but thought a satisfying career in medicine and an arranged marriage would steer him away from extremism.

One key piece of evidence was hidden in hours of internet messenger transcripts handed to the jury.

While discussing the progress of the plot, Ahmed asks Abdulla if Asha has been told. Abdulla replied: "Not yet."

The jury accepted Dr Asha was nothing more than an unwitting dupe, who was betrayed by the Iraqi medic.

They disregarded extremist material found on his laptop, apparently download by Abdulla, and a hand-written poem addressed to Osama bin Laden found at his home.

Colleagues at North Staffordshire University Hospital stood by Asha.

Senior consultants lined up to travel to south east London and tell the court Asha was a dedicated professional and family man.

Consultant neurosurgeon Rupert Price said he gave Asha a glowing reference as he believed he could become Britain's top neurosurgeon.

Meanwhile his family in Jordan told the media they had no doubt he was innocent and would eventually walk free.

Born in Saudi Arabia, Asha was a gifted child in a large family of Palestinian descent brought up in a relatively secular and liberal environment

He studied at an American-funded mixed school, an unusual institution in Jordan, before winning a scholarship to read medicine at the University of Amman.

In 2003 he travelled to Cambridge to train at Addenbrookes Hospital, and it was in the city that he met Abdulla and Kafeel Ahmed.

The doctor progressed quickly with stints at the Prince Philip Hospital in Llanelli and the Royal Shrewsbury Hospital. He was due to move on to Coventry at the time of his arrest.

Meanwhile he married his childhood sweetheart Marwa Daana in 2004 after wooing her with verse and persuading her strict father he was a suitable husband.

Dr Asha was a thoughtful pacifist, who enjoyed meeting people, reading Islamic literature and writing poetry, friends said.

It was characteristic of the doctor that he could find something positive in his time at Belmarsh Prison. He told the court his English had improved considerably since his arrest.

His barrister Stephen Kamlish QC said Dr Asha's dedication to medicine was as extreme as Abdulla's fundamentalism.

And he said the prosecution case was "pure speculation" in which the evidence was grossly misinterpreted.

In his own defence, Dr Asha said Abdulla destroyed his life and betrayed him. Asked if he was involved in terrorism, he said: "I would not jeopardise my family or my wife for anything in the world."

* NHS doctor Sabeel Ahmed was deported to India in May after admitting withholding information about the London and Glasgow attacks from police.

The 27-year-old's NHS career was brought to an end when he was sentenced to 18 months imprisonment at the Old Bailey in April.

Counter terrorist police discovered he received a text message from his terrorist brother Kafeel as he prepared the airport suicide attack.

The message directed Ahmed to an email account holding a message from his brother explaining his actions and an inflammatory will.

But prosecutors agreed the doctor did not check the contents of the account until after the Jeep ploughed into the terminal building.

Ahmed travelled to Britain to continue his medical training in 2004 after graduating from university in India.

He was arrested near Liverpool's Lime Street station on 30 June last year.

The doctor, originally from Bangalore in India, was working at hospitals in Warrington and Halton, Cheshire, at the time of the attack

When police searched his shared accommodation in Ramilies Road, Liverpool, they discovered a laptop carrying documents written by Kafeel Ahmed.

Ahmed refused to help police when he was interviewed and concealed the information he had, deliberately misleading investigators.

Defending Mohammed Asha, Stephen Kamlish QC told the jury there was more evidence linking Ahmed to the plot than his client.

But earlier this year Mr Justice Calvert-Smith told him: "I accept that so far as you personally were concerned there is no sign of your being an extremist or party to extremist views."