NEW YORK, March 4: A New Jersey man pleaded guilty on Thursday to the robbery and fatal beating of a Pakistani part-time pizza deliveryman, who had just graduated with honours from the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

Philip Pounds, 18, was in tears in a New Jersey court as he admitted using a baseball bat in the 2003 killing of Nabeel Siddiqui, a 24-year-old Pakistani immigrant.

Turning to Asim Khan and Kalim Khan, two of Siddiqui's uncles sitting in the audience, the accused said he never meant for the robbery plotted by him and three other teens to end in the student's death. "I am sorry for putting you through all that you are going through. I'm sorry. I'm just sorry," he said.

He pleaded guilty to aggravated manslaughter, robbery and other charges stemming from the Sept 27, 2003, attack on the five-feet two-inch, 110-pound victim on Haxtun Avenue in Orange.

In exchange for his guilty plea, Assistant Essex County Prosecutor Romesh Sukhdeo agreed to reduce a murder charge to aggravated manslaughter and recommend that Judge Betty Lester sentence him to no more than 25 years in prison. The judge set the sentencing for April 19.

Mr Pounds said he and his accomplices called in a pizza order to Domino's at about 9:30pm and agreed that he would hit the deliveryman with a baseball bat in the legs so they could take his car. He said he fled on foot after the robbery and one of the other youths took the victim's vehicle.