Madrid (AP): Ten of those on trial in an alleged Islamic terror plot to blow up Spain's National Court with a truck bomb were ordered freed on Monday, but some will remain jailed in other cases, a court statement said.

The order came days before the expected verdicts and sentencing in the trial, which began last October and finished last month. Their release indicates that the 10 _ charged with collaborating with a terrorist group _ stand to be acquitted or have already served more than half of their possible sentences.

Five of the 10 _ jailed since late 2004, when authorities say they uncovered the plot _ were to remain in prison because they face charges in other cases.

Twenty other men remain held in the alleged bomb plot, which police say they uncovered with the help of an informant who lived with some of the accused. A date for the verdict has not been announced but is expected soon.

The alleged mastermind, Abderrahmane Tahiri, was accused of planning to ram a truck loaded with 500 kilograms, or 1,100 pounds, of explosives into the National Court in downtown Madrid. The court is the center of Spain's anti-terror investigations.

Investigative Judge Fernando Grande-Marlaska said the attack could have killed up to 1,000 people.

Tahiri, who also goes by the alias Mohamed Achraf, was extradited from Switzerland in April 2005. He was not among those ordered freed on Monday.

Another magistrate, Baltasar Garzon, said Tahiri set up a cell known as the Martyrs for Morocco while in a Spanish prison, where he was serving time for credit card fraud between 1999 and 2002.

Garzon said the cell had links with other Islamic terrorists, including the group believed to be behind the March 11 train bombings in Madrid that killed 191 people.

Of the 30 tried, 19 are Algerian, five _ including Tahiri _ are Moroccan, and the others are from Spain, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Mauritania and the Palestinian territories.