A convicted al Qaeda operative wants leniency on the grounds that he was “inveigled” into helping bomb two US embassies after being befriended by “sophisticated” terrorists.

In court papers made public yesterday, defense lawyers portray ex-Guantanamo detainee Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani as a naive and “earnest young business broker” duped into helping Islamic terrorists “accomplish their heinous plot.”

The Manhattan federal court filing seeks “a sentence of less than life” when Ghailani is sentenced today for his role in the 1998 attacks that killed 224 people in Africa.