Bilal Abdulla was found guilty at Woolwich Crown Court of conspiring to murder hundreds of people with car bomb attacks on London and Glasgow. (London Metropolitan Police/Associated Press)

A British judge has sentenced a British-Iraqi doctor to 32 years in prison for plotting car bomb attacks in central London and Glasgow airport.

Bilal Abdulla, 29, was convicted on Tuesday of conspiring to murder and cause explosions, following a nine-week trial.

Justice Colin Mackay, who handed down the life sentence on Wednesday in Woolwich Crown Court, described Abdulla as a "religious extremist and a bigot."

Mackay said he did not understand how a person trained as a doctor and sworn to uphold life could have done what Abdulla did.

Abdulla was born in Britain but spent much of his life in Iraq. He worked as a doctor in the National Health Service.

During the trial Abdulla claimed he only intended to frighten Britons. He testified he was outraged by the violence in Iraq following the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

"I wanted the public to taste what is going on, for them to have a taste of what the decisions of their democratically elected murderers did to my people," Abdulla testified.

London police discovered two Mercedes loaded with explosives on June 29, 2007. One was left near a nightclub in central London and the other was left at a nearby bus stop. They failed to explode and no one was injured.

In another incident at Glasgow airport on June 30, 2007, a co-conspirator, Kafeel Ahmed, tried to drive a Jeep through a pedestrian entrance and then lit gasoline bombs and set fire to the vehicle. Ahmed later died of burns.

"Many people felt and still feel strong opposition to the invasion of Iraq," Mackay told Abdulla during the sentencing. "You have strong reasons for holding that view. But you were born with intelligence and you were born into a privileged and well-to-do position in Iraq, and you are a trained doctor."

Abdulla's co-defendant, Jordanian neurologist Mohammed Asha, 28, was acquitted on the same charges. Asha has denied taking any part in a plot.

With files from the Associated Press