One of the men accused of planning the failed terror attacks on London on July 21, 2005, has been jailed for six years and nine months by at the High Court in London after pleading guilty to possessing terrorist information.

Adel Yahya, 24, of Tottenham, North London, will no longer face a retrial for conspiracy to murder after the charge was dropped by the prosecution.

The Ethiopian-born man was tried for the more serious charge earlier this year at Woolwich Crown Court, when the jury failed to reach a verdict.

Four other men tried alongside Yahya were jailed for life. Muktar Said Ibrahim, Yassin Omar, Ramzi Mohammed and Hussain Osman were told that they would all serve a minimum of 40 years in prison.

They attempted to detonate bombs on three London Underground trains at Shepherd’s Bush station, Oval station, Warren Street station and a bus in Hackney Road, but their attacks failed because they used the incorrect ratio of ingredients.

Two weeks earlier a similar, but unconnected, plot killed 52 people on London’s transport network.

Peter Thornton, QC, acting for Yahya, admitted that his client made inquiries about hydrogen peroxide, one of the ingredients used in the rucksack explosive devices, but said that Yahya was “never a knowing party to the agreement to kill”.

Prosecutors in the first trial had accused Yahya of being part of the “inner circle” and a central figure to the plot, but Nigel Sweeney, QC, for the Crown, said that charges of conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions had been withdrawn.

He said that Yahya had now admitted a charge of collecting information likely to be useful to a person preparing an act of terrorism — a charge that carries a maximum sentence of ten years. Mr Sweeney said that the prosecution was prepared to accept the plea and offer no evidence on the other charges.

He said Yahya had collected information about the purchase of liquid hydrogen peroxide, which he knew his former co-defendants were planning to use to produce terrorist explosive devices.

Earlier this year, a court heard that Yahya left Britain six weeks before the July 21 bombings. The student had gone to Yemen, the home country of his wife, and on July 18 the couple flew to Ethiopia.

Officers seized several items at an address in Ethiopia, including a CD containing details of explosives and chemicals. Another listed book titles including Terrorist Target Selection, Biological Warfare, Chemical Warfare Agents and Jihad: The Origin of the Holy War in Islam.

Although Yahya signed a property list confirming that he owned the CD, he said the disc belonged to an uncle and he had signed for it only so it would not get stolen.

Mr Sweeney said that Yahya, who has been a British citizen since 2003, had known Omar since schooldays in London and it was through Omar that he had met the other former co-defendants.

A sixth man charged in connection with the failed attacks, Manfo Kwaku Asiedu, 34, of no fixed address, is due to go on trial next Monday. He will face a single charge of conspiracy to murder at Kingston Crown Court.

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