Houston: A US judge has ruled that attorneys for Enron founder Kenneth Lay and its former CEO Jeffrey Skilling can name about half of the 114 un-indicted co-conspirators in the pending criminal case.

US District Judge Sim Lake said that the lawyers could make public the names of individuals on the Government's list who have been charged with crimes, publicly identified as co-conspirators in other Enron cases, pleaded guilty or have been convicted at trial of Enron-related crimes.

The names that can be released numbered about half of the 114 un-indicted co-conspirators in this case. These people would also include Andrew Fastow, Enron's former CFO, who pleaded guilty to conspiracy in January 2004.

However, according to the media sources in Huston, "there's a catch; those that can be revealed are the names that already were public".

Judge Lake originally accepted the list from Government under seal but defence attorneys asked that it be made public.

One hundred and fourteen is an unusually long list of un-indicted co-conspirators, a label that identifies people the Government says helped commit the crime but whom the Government has so far decided not to charge in this case. Since Houston Chronicle revealed on Dec 3 that the list had been filed under seal, lawyers for various ex-Enron executives have been trying to learn whether their clients are listed.

Lake ordered that the defence lawyers, who have the Government's list, might make public the names of people who have already been convicted and people who have already been disclosed as co-conspirators in publicly filed documents in Enron prosecutions.