2 more plead guilty in UK airline bomb blot

LONDON—Two men accused of plotting to detonate liquid explosives aboard trans-Atlantic jets in 2006 have pleaded guilty to lesser charges.

Arafat Waheed Khan, 27, and Waheed Zaman, 24, admitted Monday to "conspiring to commit a public nuisance." But they deny plotting to kill thousands of people by smuggling liquid explosives onto jets bound from London to North America and detonating them in-flight.

They and six other British Muslims are being tried for the alleged plot, which caused travel chaos in Britain when it was uncovered in the summer of 2006. Restrictions on the amount of liquid passengers can carry in their hand luggage -- imposed in the wake of the men's arrest -- still remain in place.

Prosecutors say the men targeted at least seven jetliner flights from London to the United States and Canada and showed the court what they said were "martyrdom" videos intended to be released after the planes had been destroyed.

The defendants deny the charge of conspiracy to murder. However, three of the men -- Ahmed Ali, 27, Assad Sarwar, 28, and Tanvir Hussain, 27 -- admitted earlier this month that they wanted to set off bombs, though not on planes.

Ali told the court he wanted to set off a small explosion at a high-profile location -- such as Heathrow Airport or the Houses of Parliament -- and release the videos as part of a publicity stunt to draw attention to Britain's policies in the Muslim world.

"It was childish, it was stupid, but it is not murder," his attorney Nadine Radford said Tuesday.

Prosecutor Wright has rejected that explanation, calling it "bogus."

"This was no propaganda video, no documentary, no exercise or stunt -- this was for real," he told jurors last week.

Khan and Zaman's guilty pleas brings to seven the number of defendants who have so far admitted to plotting to cause a public nuisance by releasing the threatening videos. The jury at southeast London's Woolwich Crown Court must still decide whether the men intended to wreak havoc by attacking planes at the height of the summer travel season.

Defense attorneys are summing up their defendants' individual cases and the jury is expected to retire this week.