Sharon and Oded Parinyan plead guilty in Tel Aviv District Court on Thursday to conspiring to commit a crime, and will face of sentence of five years in prison.

The two were previously charged with murder for dispatching police officer Tzachi Ben Or and one of their associates, Shimon Almakayis, to kill known underworld figure Pinchas Buhbut.

The handling of the case was investigated by the Zeiler Committee, whose scathing report led Police Commissioner Moshe Karadi to resign earlier this week.

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According to the plea bargain, the murder charge was dropped from the indictment, and Sharon and Oded Parinyan were only charged with conspiracy to commit a crime. The prosecution and defense agreed to issue a joint plea for a five-year jail term, from which the period of their remand will be subtracted.

The pair will also pay compensation to Buhbut's widow, although the exact sum has not been agreed.

The prosecution has signed an additional plea bargain with Almakayis, who has been accused of being with Ben Or while he murdered Buhbut. Almakayis had also been charged with murder, but according to the plea bargain, he will be charged of being an accomplice to murder, and both parties will request a 10-year jail term.

Buhbut was murdered in 1999 at the Tel Hashomer Medical Center, while he was recovering from an earlier assassination attempt outside his Ashkelon home. Police suspect Ben Or murdered Buhbut on orders from the Parinyan brothers. The brothers are also suspected of sending agents to murder Ben Or in Mexico.

The two brothers were captured by police at the end of 2005 and charged with murder. The prosecution said at the time it had enough evidence for a conviction, including taped conversations between Almakayis and Ben Or. Nonetheless, growing concerns within the prosecution that it will not be able to supply proof of murder in court led the prosecution to negotiate a plea bargain with the brothers' attorneys.