Four plead guilty to conspiracy

Four men pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiring with an Al Qaeda-linked operative convicted of plotting to bomb the New York Stock Exchange and other targets in the United States and Britain.

The men pleaded guilty in a London court to plotting to cause explosions with Dhiren Barot, who was sentenced to life in prison in November for planning attacks on several U.S. financial targets, London hotels and train stations.

Authorities did not specify the targets the four men -- Junade Feroze, 31; Mohammed Zia Ul Haq, 28; Abdul Aziz Jalil, 34; and Omar Abdul Rehman, 23 -- were accused of plotting against.

A fifth man, Qaisar Shaffi, 28, denied the charge and is to stand trial next week.

Barot, a 34-year-old Muslim convert, was convicted of planning to use limousines packed with gas tanks, napalm and nails in the attacks.

Prosecutors said the targets included the International Monetary Fund in Washington, the Citigroup headquarters in New York and London train stations.

A sixth defendant in the case, Mohammed Naveed Bhatti, 27, pleaded guilty last week, and a seventh, Nadeem Tarmohammed, 28, has yet to be arraigned.

In another case, a Moroccan man arrested two years ago as an alleged conspirator in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the U.S. was ordered released Wednesday by a British court that said his detention was arbitrary and unjustified.

Farid Hilali was arrested in June 2004 on a European warrant after he was named with 34 others as an alleged conspirator in the attacks. He has been held in British prisons while fighting extradition to Spain.

Spanish authorities accused him of links to Syrian-born Spaniard Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, who allegedly founded an Al Qaeda cell in Spain.

But last year, Spain’s Supreme Court voided Barakat’s conviction of conspiracy to murder in connection with the 9/11 attacks. He remains in prison on a separate conviction of belonging to a terrorist organization.

Hilali’s detention became unjustified once Barakat’s conviction was voided, Justices Janet Smith and Stephen Irwin ruled.

Hilali was not immediately released, however, pending a possible prosecution appeal.