LONDON, 5 December 2003 — British police yesterday charged four men arrested under anti-terrorism laws last week with conspiracy to defraud clearing banks of large sums of money.

Three of the men, of North African origin, were arrested in a swoop in the southern coast town of Eastbourne — one of a number of raids carried out by Britain’s anti-terror police across central and southern England in the last week.

Mohammed Khatimi, aged 28, from Eastbourne, Samir Adimi, aged 20, of no fixed address, Mohammed Rida, aged 28, from the south coast town of St Leonards, and Mostapha Safi, 32, from London, will appear before London’s Bow Street magistrates on Friday, Sussex Police said in a statement.

Safi was arrested in London, they said.

A man in his 30s arrested in the Eastbourne raid was released without charge while another, Noureddinne Mouleff, 36, was remanded in custody when he appeared in court on Wednesday.

Mouleff is charged under section 57 of the Terrorism Act 2000 which deals with suspects found with “an article in circumstances which give rise to a reasonable suspicion that its possession is for a purpose connected with the commission, preparation or instigation of an act of terrorism.”

Two weeks ago British security services were put on their second-highest alert after intelligence officials said they had information a terror attack was planned but did not know its target.

In the last week police have arrested more than 20 people under sweeping anti-terrorism laws in a series of raids they say are unconnected.

Meanwhile, a man was remanded in custody yesterday after appearing in court on charges of having explosives and conspiring with convicted “shoebomber” Richard Reid to carry out terror attacks.

Sajid Badat, 24, who was arrested in the southwestern town of Gloucester last week, spoke only to confirm his name and address at the hearing in central London.

He was ordered to appear again next yesterday.

Reid, a follower of Osama Bin Laden whose Al-Qaeda group is blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, was jailed for life in January in the United States after admitting to trying to blow up a transatlantic airliner using explosives hidden in his shoe.

Two weeks ago, British security services were put on their second-highest alert after intelligence officials said they had information an attack was planned. It followed numerous warnings from the government and security chiefs that Britain, Washington’s closest ally in the “war on terror,” was a prime target for attacks.

Prime Minister Tony Blair said on Tuesday that Britons were under threat while the country’s top policeman Sir John Stevens has cautioned that an attack in Britain was almost inevitable.

Last week’s arrest of Badat, who was said by Home Secretary (Interior Minister) David Blunkett to have “connections with the network of Al-Qaeda groups,” shocked fellow Muslims in his quiet home town who described him as a “nice, polite kid.”

Badat faces a charge that he “unlawfully and maliciously conspired with Richard Reid and others unknown to cause...an explosion likely to endanger life or cause serious injury to property in the United Kingdom or elsewhere.”

Reid, a former burglar from Brixton in south London, was overpowered by crew and passengers when he tried to ignite the explosives on board an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December, 2001.

In Frankfurt, Germany, a judge indicated yesterday that he planned to call off the trial of a 34-year-old Algerian, saying his pre-trial detention had more than atoned for his association with four other convicted terrorists.

Prosecutors asked for time to consider the Frankfurt court’s proposal, in which the man would walk free without conviction but would not be compensated for the 17 months he has been detained.

Four other Algerians have received long prison terms in March for a plot to bomb booths distributing Christmas cheer in 2000 outside the Catholic cathedral of Strasbourg, France. They had even filmed the location to help them select a hiding place for the bomb.

German police arrested the group before any attack could take place.

The state’s case against the fifth man was always weaker. Although the defendant admitted to training with radicals in an Afghan camp, he strenuously denied any knowledge of his friends’ bomb plot and rejected the claim he was a member of their terrorist organization.

The state superior court said it would be best to use a legal provision allowing the closure of a trial “on the grounds of minimal guilt” when the “public interest in continuation no longer suffices.”

The judge said that if he were to find the defendant guilty, the prison sentence would certainly be less than the 17 months so far served.

Defense counsel indicated a willingness to settle, while the prosecution asked for a week to consider its position.

During the trial, the man, whose name has been withheld under ethical reporting guidelines, acknowledged that he had undergone training at a camp in Afghanistan, but that he had quickly left it again.

“At no point in my life did I ever belong to a terrorist grouping,” his statement read to the court said. He also denied knowing of plans for any attacks on the Christmas market or synagogues or of weapons being acquired.