The Canadian Public Prosecution Service said it was appealing the 10.5-year prison sentence handed out last month to Momin Khawaja, the first Canadian found guilty under Ottawa's post-September-11 anti-terror law.

Khawaja, a 29-year-old Canadian of Pakistani origin, was sentenced on 12 March to prison for participating in a foiled plot to attack several sites in Britain. He is eligible for parole five years into his prison term.

Prosecutors had sought a maximum life sentence of 44 to 58 years in prison for Khawaja, similar in length to those handed to five of his co-conspirators in Britain.

The plot included attacks on a nightclub, a shopping center and electrical and gas facilities.

When he was arrested in March 2004, Khawaja was accused of developing bomb detonators for his British associates, possessing explosives, financing terrorism, and training as a terrorist in Pakistan.

The Public Prosecution Service in a brief statement said it "plans to appeal the sentencing decision in the recent case of Momin Khawaja."

Last week Khawaja's defence lawyer also appealed the sentence, deeming it "too harsh".

The lawyer argued at the trial that his client's actions were in support of an insurgency in Afghanistan against coalition forces, not against British targets.

The judge ruled the prosecution did not prove Khawaja's "guilty knowledge" of the specific details of the plot planned by a British terror group.

Canada's anti-terrorism act was rushed into law after the 11 September 2001 attacks in the United States.

It was used to charge 18 people in Toronto three years ago in an alleged conspiracy to bomb public buildings, storm parliament and behead Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

But most of those cases are still before the courts.