Three IRA members have begun prison sentences in Britain totalling 62 years for their part in a plot to mount a huge bombing campaign in London.
A London jury convicted Patrick Kelly (31), Brian McHugh (31) and James Murphy (26) of being involved in a gang which amassed more than six tonnes of homemade explosives.
Police smashed the IRA cell in a raid on a hotel in Hammersmith, west London, in September last year in which another member of the gang was shot dead.
Amid emotional scenes inside the court, a fourth man, Mr Michael Phillips (22), a British Airways engineer from Crawley, was acquitted after the jury deliberated for more than 20 hours.
Family members cried as the foreman of the jury announced the guilty verdicts for the other three men. One woman shouted from the public gallery: "This trial will halt the peace process."
As Mr Phillips was cleared, he said "thank you" to the jury of nine men and three women. He hugged his fellow defendants before he was led away from the dock and was later picked up by a car outside the court, refusing to answer questions from journalists.
All four had denied conspiring to cause explosions between January 1st and September 24th last year and possessing explosives.
McHugh, described as the ringleader, was jailed for 25 years on both charges, Kelly for 20 years and Murphy for 17 years. All sentences were concurrent.
Although he did not give evidence, McHugh said that he was sent to London to decommission the cache of explosives. He said that his orders were to dispose of arms as the republican movement moved towards peace and wanted to join "historic" settlement talks in Northern Ireland.
Mr Justice Smedley criticised his story as "sheer hypocrisy". He said that McHugh had tried to take advantage of the death of another member of the gang, Diarmuid O'Neill (27). "You sought to take advantage of his death to weave a totally false story", the judge said. "To suggest that all that was intended was that the material should be moved for long-term storage is sheer hypocrisy."
He told Kelly, the active service unit's driver: "You are not a sophisticated terrorist, but you are a dedicated IRA member."
Murphy, the judge said, was not a member of the inner circle of the IRA and had come under the spell of O'Neill, who was of "greater intelligence". He had known that he was putting innocent human lives at risk. "That's why the part you played was serious."
Murphy, who had an address in Chelsea, was involved from the start with O'Neill in planning the campaign. McHugh and Kelly did not arrive in London from Ireland until later.
During the 6 1/2-week trial the court heard that O'Neill, the cell's quartermaster, was shot dead when police raided a hotel. Officers broke into the room where he was hiding with two other gang members.
The gang had access to tonnes of explosive and was using a secure storage unit in north London as a bomb factory. Bombs were to be left on at least one lorry. Four large wooden crates were packed with explosives and booster tubes containing high-performance detonator cord. The cache comprised more than six tonnes of home-made explosives, 22lb of Semtex, 25 time and power units, two under-car booby traps, ammunition and firearms.