Climate of fear fuels case against two Pakistani Americans
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali
SAN FRANCISCO: Trial begins next month of Hamid Hayat, a Pakistani American, who was convicted by jury in April on charges of providing material support to terrorists. He was also found guilty of undergoing terrorist training in Pakistan and returning to California’s town of Lodi prepared to wage ‘jihad’ against his fellow Americans.
His lawyer, Wazhma Mojaddidi, has filed a motion for retrial on the plea that the judge has refused to allow crucial testimony while a juror filed an affidavit in the court saying that she was bullied into a guilty verdict by fellow jurors who exhibited a pattern of misconduct and racism.
The judge barred much of the testimony Mojaddidi had sought to introduce during the two-month trial, including that of a retired 35-year FBI agent who planned to tell the jury he believed the FBI bungled the case against Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer Hayat, 48, who was freed last month after his first terror trial ended last April in a mistrial. He pleaded guilty to an unrelated charge of making a false claim on a customs form and was released in August.
Both Hamid and Umer Hayat were detained in June 2005 along with two Pakistani religious leaders Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan in what authorities suggested was part of a terrorist cell in Lodi, 35 miles south of the California state capital. The two imams and one man’s son were deported for immigration violations. However, the Hayats were the only people criminally charged in the probe.
Fearmongering that generates political support, a fact that the Bush administration has used after 9/11 fuelled the much publicised “terror case” against the two Pakistani Americans, argues the Public Broadcasting Service’s Frontline program “The Enemy Within.”
In the summer of 2005 the Bush administration was in the midst of transforming the FBI from its traditional role as the nation’s premier federal law enforcement agency into an agency whose priority was hunting for domestic terrorists and AI Qaeda “sleeper cells.”
But while neglecting other forms of violent crime, the bureau reported it could find no evidence of such groups. Nor could the 9/11 Commission. “People talked about cells and sleeper cells and all of that,” Thomas H. Kean, the former commission co-chairman, told the Frontline correspondent Lowell Bergman, but “we didn’t find any.” Instead, to gain credibility in its new role, the FBI leveled important sounding charges against small-time crooks. A recent study quoted by Frontline found that almost all of the government’s 441 “terrorism-related” cases since 9/11 involved relatively petty charges, like visa violations and financial fraud, not plans to carry out violent acts.
In such an atmosphere, Nassim Khan, a convenience store clerk, told the FBI a bizarre story about once seeing Osama Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al Zawahiri, in a Lodi mosque in Dec 2001. He was hired as an undercover informer, given a hidden tape recorder and sent to spy on two imams at the mosque. Interestingly, the idea that Zawahiri had visited Lodi was totally ludicrous, and prosecutors later admitted that the informant was mistaken.
After nearly three years of recordings, however, the investigation turned up no evidence of terrorism. Unable to bring any criminal charges, the government deported the imams on immigration charges. Undaunted, Nasim Khan, having been paid nearly a quarter of a million dollars, came up with another possible Qaeda cell: the Hayat family, which had taken him in and practically adopted him as a son. The Hayats were United States citizens; Umer Hayat drove an ice cream truck in Lodi. His son, Hamid, was a sixth-grade dropout.
In 2003 the family traveled briefly to Pakistan for Hamid’s marriage. When the rest of the family returned, Hamid stayed behind on his honeymoon and then to care for his ill mother. Nasim Khan had long been pushing Hamid to get involved in radical Islamic activities. Now, by telephone, Nasim Khan insisted that Hamid join a jihadi training camp.
In the summer of 2005, when Hamid returned to Lodi, the FBI was waiting for him. Interrogated along with his father for 15 hours in separate rooms without a lawyer, they were both later arrested. Hamid was charged with attending a jihadi training camp — something both he and his father confessed to after the non-stop interrogation.
“The Enemy Within” shows that the FBI quickly announced that it had discovered a violent Qaeda terrorist cell hidden deep in America’s heartland and that John Negroponte, the director of national intelligence, even highlighted the case in testimony on Capitol Hill. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte told Congress in February 2006: “A network of Islamic extremists in Lodi maintain[ed] connections with Pakistani militant groups, recruited US citizens for training ..., and sponsored Pakistani citizens for travel to the US to work at mosques and madrassas. ...[and] allegedly raised funds for international jihadist groups.”
But, the “Frontline” program demonstrates, it was all smoke and no fire. James Wedick, a recently retired and much decorated FBI agent, agreed to review the interrogation tapes of Hamid and his father on behalf of their defense team.
“I was shocked,” he told Frontline of the FBI interrogations. After listening to an excerpt of Hamid’s interrogation, Wedick noted, “They’re leading him, and it’s ridiculous, it’s shameful; it’s shameful because I’ve never seen the department do this before.”
“They more or less answered the way the bureau wanted them to answer,” Wedick said. “All they wanted to do was go home. They had no thoughts that if they cooperated with the FBI that either of them would spend the rest of their lives in jail.” In the end the trial judge barred Wedick from taking the stand, saying only that his testimony had the “potential for confusing the jury,” according to “The Enemy Within.” Hamid Hayat, convicted of material support of terrorism and lying to the FBI, faces a possible 39-year sentence and has filed an appeal. His father, Umer, was released after his case resulted in a hung jury, and the prosecution decided not to retry him after he pleaded guilty to an unrelated customs charge.
In the end there was no terror cell, “Frontline” reports, just an ice cream truck driver now homeless and living in a garage, and his son facing the likelihood that he will spend much of his life in jail.
