London: Eight men accused of plotting to blow up transatlantic flights using liquid explosives were planning acts which would have a "global impact," a prosecutor said today.

Beginning to outline the case against them, prosecutor Peter Wright said the plot "involved inflicting heavy casualties upon an unwitting civilian population all in the name of Islam."

"The means...was via the carrying out of a series of coordinated and deadly explosions. These men, the men who sit in the dock, were indifferent to the carnage that was likely to ensue if their plan was successful.

"To them, the identities of their victims was a compete irrelevance," he added, speaking after the jury was sworn in at London's top-security Woolwich Crown Court.

It would have been "a violent and deadly statement of intent that would have truly global impact," he said.

The defendants, who deny the charges, are accused of involvement in a 2006 plot to make bombs which some would have taken onto planes at London Heathrow airport, one of the world's busiest, and detonated mid-air, en route to the United States or Canada.

The investigation led to the introduction of stringent rules on how much liquid air passengers could carry on planes in their hand baggage.

"They intended to cause a series of explosions aboard a selected number of transatlantic aircraft... By the detonation in flight of home-made bombs, commonly referred to as improvised explosive devices," Wright said.

Source : PTI