London - British prosecutors Wednesday applied for a retrial of seven men accused of having planned to blow up airliners with liquid bombs after a jury failed to accept the proof of a link to airliners in controversial verdicts earlier this week.

The Crown Prosecution Service said its application for a retrial would "include a count that each defendant conspired to detonate improvised explosive devices on trans-Atlantic passenger aircraft."

In a controversial decision Monday, a jury at London's Woolwich Crown Court convicted three of the accused of attempted mass murder, but failed to reach a verdict on four other defendants and acquitted one. The ruling did not refer to aircraft as being the target of the conspiracy.

The ruling caused shock and outrage in Britain, where the intelligence and justice authorities saw the jury's failure to accept the evidence of a link to airliners as a setback in the fight against terrorism.

The plot to blow up seven airliners crossing the Atlantic to destinations in the US and Canada was uncovered in August, 2006, and led to stringent new rules on liquids in hand luggage.

The final decision on whether the seven men, all British Muslims, will face a retrial will be taken by a judge, after the previous judge and jury have been dismissed with the end of the first trial.

A retrial is unlikely this year, legal experts said. (dpa)