DETROIT – Federal prosecutors will admit they fumbled the nation’s first post-Sept. 11 terrorism trial and ask a judge Wednesday to throw out charges that grew out of a raid in southwest Detroit.

Prosecutors also plan to consent to a defense request to retry both defendants and a third man on document fraud charges. Prosecutors informed defense lawyers of their decision during a closed-door meeting Tuesday with U.S. District Judge Gerald Rosen.

The decision is the biggest development in the case since the verdict in June 2003 and came on the same day President Bush reasserted his contention that the United States can win its war on terrorism.

“I think they saw the writing on the wall,” one person familiar with the case said Tuesday, referring to the probability that Rosen was going to dismiss the case because prosecutors withheld documents that might have caused the jury to acquit the men. Once the documents came out, prosecutors would have had a lot of explaining to do, said the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.

Defense lawyers said Tuesday they couldn’t comment on developments in the case. The U.S. Attorney’s Office wouldn’t discuss it, either.

“Nothing has been filed and we cannot comment,” said Gina Balaya, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Moroccan immigrants Karim Koubriti, 26, and Abdel-Ilah Elmardoudi, 38, were convicted in June 2003 of conspiring to provide material support to terrorism. Ahmed Hannan, 36, also of Morocco, was convicted of document fraud. A fourth man was acquitted after a nine-week trial. Koubriti and Elmardoudi are in custody pending sentencing. Hannan is free on bond.

Koubriti and Elmardoudi, who also were convicted of document fraud, were facing up to 10 and 15 years in prison, respectively. Hannan was facing up to five years.

Prosecutors were expected to file the request seeking the dismissal of charges against Koubriti and Elmardoudi by Wednesday morning.

The request is expected to include a detailed explanation of why the government decided to seek the dismissal of the terrorism charges. Rosen is expected to approve the request.

Rosen, who presided over the trial, criticized prosecutors last December for withholding documents that could have been used to challenge the credibility of the government’s star witness in the case.

He ordered a comprehensive review of federal records to find out whether other crucial documents had been held back. The documents, turned over to defense lawyers in late June, were said to be damaging to federal prosecutors, according to people familiar with the case.

Throughout the trial, defense lawyers accused Assistant U.S. Attorneys Richard Convertino and Keith Corbett of withholding documents, evidence and witnesses crucial to the defense.

Prosecutors denied the charges, but the allegations persisted.

Last September, then-U.S. Attorney Jeffrey Collins removed Convertino from the case and asked the Justice Department to investigate him for his handling of the case, including allegations that he had withheld evidence from defense lawyers.

The Justice Department launched an administrative inquiry that eventually grew into a criminal investigation. The results of the investigation have not been announced. Convertino, meanwhile, sued Collins, top U.S. Attorney’s O ffice officials and Attorney General John Ashcroft on charges they retaliated against him for criticizing the department’s handling of the terrorism case. The civil suit is pending.

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Hannan and Koubriti were arrested six days after the Sept. 11 attacks when federal agents went to their southwest Detroit flat looking for former occupant Nabil Almarabh, who was on a federal terrorist watch list.

Almarabh wasn’t there, but agents became suspicious, searched the flat and found fraudulent identity papers and a day planner that allegedly contained targeting sketches of an American air base in Turkey and a military hospital in Jordan.

Agents also found a video allegedly containing surveillance footage of Disneyland in Anaheim, Calif., and the MGM Grand Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas and more than 100 audiotapes allegedly containing fiery Islamic indoctrination lectures exhorting Muslims to kill Christians, Jews and Muslims whose beliefs opposed theirs.

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Elmardoudi, the alleged brains behind the cell, was arrested in November 2002 at a bus station in Greensboro, N.C., carrying $83,000 in cash, $4,600 in money orders and a trove of false passports and other documents.

The government says the defendants conspired to recruit, train and equip Islamic extremists to commit terrorism in the United States and abroad and acquire and ship weapons overseas.

Defense lawyers have called the charges preposterous.

Bush told about 6,500 veterans at an American Legion convention in Nashville, Tenn., on Tuesday that the United States is winning the war on terrorism.

” We may never sit down at a peace table, but make no mistake about it, we are winning and we will win,” he said.