Toronto bomb plotters sentenced; alleged mastermind gets life

Amara, 24, has been described as the mastermind of a group known as the Toronto 18 -- a group of teenagers and young adults who were rounded up in the spring of 2006. Police say the group of young Muslim men from suburban Toronto -- all Canadian citizens -- were planning to blow up three one-ton ammonium nitrate bombs inside vans parked in downtown Toronto.

A police informant who infiltrated the group told CNN that Amara was planning to time the three explosions for September 11, 2006, the five-year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York.

At his sentencing hearing last Thursday, Amara pleaded with the court for leniency. In a letter he told the court he was a changed man and vowing to transform himself from "a man of destruction to a man of construction."

Amara also was sentenced Monday to an additional nine years for his participation in a terrorist group.

Earlier Monday, Saad Gaya, a 22-year-old Canadian who was charged with being part of the plot, was sentenced to 12 years in prison.