Pakistan clears 4 in Times Sq. bomb plot

Faisal Shahzad Humbal Akhtar A PAKISTANI court acquitted four men charged with assisting in a failed plot to bomb Times Square, their lawyer and families said Saturday.

The men were collared soon after Faisal Shahzad was busted for trying to detonate explosives planted in a truck parked in the Crossroads of the World in May 2010.

The poorly made bomb — which Shahzad hoped would kill hundreds — fizzled out and only produced a plume of smoke.

Shahzad, who lived in Connecticut, later pleaded guilty and admitted he was trained by the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s tribal region along the Afghan border. He is serving a life sentence in prison.

Soon after his confession, authorities overseas arrested Muhammad Shoaib Mughal and charged him with providing Shahzad money to carry out the attack, said his lawyer, Malik Imran Safdar.

Three of Mughal’s alleged accomplices — Humbal Akhtar, Muhammad Shahid Husain and Faisal Abbasi — were later taken into custody, Safdar said.

Two others were also arrested in Pakistan around the same time, but were later released.

Some of the four men detained were also accused of helping the Pakistan-born Shahzad link up with militants, but the evidence didn’t seem to stick.

Only few details emerged out of the closed-door trial at an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi, just outside Islamabad.

It was not clear if Pakistan authorities had any other suspects in custody.

In response to the acquittals, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said, “I suppose it wouldn’t be Pakistan if it ceased to disappoint.”