<http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1890329&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312> http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=1890329&CMP=OTC-RSSFeeds0312
ABC News Jury Convicts Calif. Man in Terrorism Case Jury Finds Calif. Man Guilty of Attending an al-Qaida Training Camp in Pakistan By DON THOMPSON The Associated Press SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A federal jury on Tuesday convicted a 23-year-old man of supporting terrorists by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan three years ago. Hamid Hayat, a seasonal farm worker in Lodi, an agricultural town south of Sacramento, was convicted of one count of providing material support to terrorists and three counts of lying to the FBI. His attorney said she would seek a new trial. "Hamid Hayat never attended a terrorist training camp. This fight is not over," Wazhma Mojaddidi said. The verdicts came hours after a separate jury hearing a case against the man's father deadlocked, forcing the judge to declare a mistrial. The father, 48-year-old ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, is charged with two counts of lying to the FBI about his son's involvement in the training camp. Defense attorneys and prosecutors will meet in court May 5 to decide whether he will be retried. Both men are U.S. citizens and stood trial in federal court before separate juries. They have been in custody since last June. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales praised the verdicts, saying in a statement that Hamid Hayat "supported and trained with our terrorist enemies in pursuit of his goal of violent jihad." Defense attorneys tried to persuade jurors that they should acquit the two because the government had provided no clear evidence that the son had attended a camp. But prosecutors characterized their case as pre-emptive. "This case is important because it shows that we can prevent further acts of terrorism by winning convictions against those who would plot deadly acts against our citizens before they can act," U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said at a news conference. The investigation into potential terrorist activities in Lodi is continuing, Scott said. He would not rule out further charges. The case initially generated wide interest because it raised concerns about a potential terrorist cell in the wine-producing region about 35 miles south of the state capital. But the government presented no evidence of such a network. Instead, the case centered on videotaped confessions the men gave to FBI agents and a government informant who secretly recorded conversations but whose credibility was challenged by the defense. Prosecutors described Hamid Hayat as having "a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind," and who returned from a two-year visit to Pakistan intent on carrying out attacks. Possible targets included hospitals, banks and grocery stores, but prosecutors presented no evidence in the nine-week trial that such attacks were imminent or planned. The prosecution's biggest hurdle was trying to persuade jurors to discount the men's videotaped confessions. The statements were given separately last June during lengthy interrogations by the FBI in Sacramento. Defense lawyers said the confessions were made under duress, after the men had been questioned for hours in the middle of the night. The father and son eventually told the agents merely what they thought they wanted to hear, without realizing the legal consequences, their lawyers argued. The government's investigation into Lodi's 2,500-member Pakistani community began after agents received a tip in 2001 that area businesses were sending money to terrorist groups abroad. That investigation ultimately fizzled, but it did lead agents to Naseem Khan. The 32-year-old former Lodi resident was working service jobs in rural Oregon when agents approached him in October 2001. Khan, a Pakistan native who moved to the United States as a teenager, was recruited to infiltrate Lodi's Pakistani community. He initially investigated the money laundering allegations and then targeted a pair of local imams before finally befriending Hamid Hayat. After Hamid Hayat left for Pakistan in spring 2003, Khan kept in touch and recorded their telephone calls in some of which Khan urged Hayat to attend a jihadi camp. In one conversation, Khan exhorted Hayat to "be a man do something!" Hamid Hayat's lawyers seized on such conversations in an effort to show that the FBI informant pushed Hayat to attend a training camp. They also questioned the informant's credibility. Khan testified that just before he was recruited, he told FBI agents he had seen Osama bin Laden's physician and two other international terrorists living in Lodi during the late 1990s. At the time, they were wanted for attacks in the Middle East and Africa. Defense attorneys and terrorism experts said it was highly unlikely they would have been in the country at that time, a point prosecutors conceded later in the trial. Hamid Hayat faces a minimum of 30 years in prison, prosecutors said. His sentencing is scheduled for July 14. Associated Press Writer Juliet Williams contributed to this report. Copyright 2006 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Copyright C 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] -------------------------- Want to discuss this topic? Head on over to our discussion list, [EMAIL PROTECTED] -------------------------- Brooks Isoldi, editor [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.intellnet.org Post message: osint@yahoogroups.com Subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Unsubscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *** FAIR USE NOTICE. This message contains copyrighted material whose use has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. OSINT, as a part of The Intelligence Network, is making it available without profit to OSINT YahooGroups members who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information in their efforts to advance the understanding of intelligence and law enforcement organizations, their activities, methods, techniques, human rights, civil liberties, social justice and other intelligence related issues, for non-profit research and educational purposes only. We believe that this constitutes a 'fair use' of the copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Law. If you wish to use this copyrighted material for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use,' you must obtain permission from the copyright owner. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/osint/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
