Four men have pleaded guilty to a plot to kidnap and behead a British Muslim soldier, a court was told on Tuesday.

Parviz Khan, a 37-year-old Briton, pleaded guilty earlier this month to a series of charges including the beheading plot, which was thwarted by police and the MI5 security service a year ago, BBC News reported.

The kidnapping would have been videotaped and distributed to terrorist networks around the world, Leicester Crown was told.

Amjad Mahmood, 33, and Zaboor Iqbal, 31, have pleaded not guilty to involvement in the plot. Mr. Mahmood denied failing to inform police about the plot, while Mr. Iqbal denied possessing information likely to be useful to terrorists, namely a computer disc called Encyclopaedia Jihad.

All three of them were also accused of intending to supply equipment to terrorists operating in Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan.

Prosecutor Nigel Rumfitt told the jury Mr. Khan was “a man who has the most violent and extreme Islamist view. He was enraged by the idea that there are Muslim soldiers in the British army,” BBC News quoted Rumfitt.

Basiru Gassama, 30, has admitted knowing about the plot but not telling anyone about it. Mohammed Irfan, 31, and Hamid Elasmar, 44, pleaded guilty to helping Khan supply the equipment.

All of them were arrested in a series of high-profile raids in Birmingham at the end of January last year after an investigation led by West Midlands Police Counter-Terrorism Unit.