NEW YORK, Jan 25: A Pakistani youth who was charged with conspiring to blow up Herald Square near Macy’s department store in 2004 testified on Tuesday in a US federal court in Brooklyn (New York) that while he first claimed the plot was not his idea, he later told federal prosecutors that it was.

The accused Shahawar Matin Siraj, 23, testifying during a hearing in his case before Judge Nina Gershon of US district court, acknowledged making the admissions to federal and local authorities in the hours after his arrest in the plot, the New York Times reported.

Mr Siraj and a co-defendant, James Elshafay, had diagrams of the subway station and two maps of police precincts and bridges on Staten Island when they were arrested on Aug 27, 2004, three days before the Republican National Convention, which was held at Madison Square Garden, just blocks away from the subway station. Mr Stolar said he believes that Mr Elshafay has been cooperating with prosecutors.