Briton jailed for drugs plot

A British mercenary who conspired to buy a fighter jet in an elaborate plot to kill a Colombian cocaine baron has been sentenced to 33 months in jail.

David Tomkins, 64, from Basingstoke, Hampshire, had confessed to trying to buy a Vietnam-era plane to bomb a prison housing Pablo Escobar. Lawyers had already agreed at the court in Miami that Tomkins faced 33 months behind bars. Tomkins' family and the chambers of the US District Judge Adalberto Jordan confirmed the sentence.

Tomkins tried to buy the plane from undercover federal agents in 1991. He had been contracted by rivals of Escobar. He was arrested last year.