Hamid and Umer Hayat
Encyclopedia
Hamid Hayat is a United States citizen of Pakistan
i descent from Lodi
, California
. His father, Umer Hayat (b. January 5, 1958), was born in Pakistan and emigrated to the United States
in 1976; he is a naturalized
American citizen. Together they were the subjects of the first terrorism trial in the state of California. Both were alleged to be part of, or associated with, a terrorist sleeper cell.
to terrorists, and of lying about it to FBI agents. The prosecution alleged that Hamid Hayat had spent the better part of two years at an al-Qaeda
training camp in Pakistan
, returning in 2005 with an intent to attack civilian targets in the United States
. The defense contended that Hayat was in Pakistan
to engage an arranged marriage
. On April 25, 2006, a jury voted to convict Hamid Hayat of one count of providing material support or resources to terrorists and three counts of making false statements to the FBI in matters related to international or domestic terrorism. The maximum penalty for these charges is 39 years of imprisonment. Sentencing was set for July 14, 2006, before U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr.
His father, Umer Hayat, was also arrested and charged with two counts of making false statements to the FBI regarding the investigation of his son and of certain members of the Muslim
community of Lodi
. Umer's charges ended in a hung jury
. When faced with a retrial for the same offenses, he pled
guilty
in exchange for a release with time served
.
Islamophobia
. They cite the occasionally outlandish nature of the confessions, especially Umer's, in particular where he describes a supposed al-Qaeda
training camp populated by a thousand men doing "pole vault" practice in ninja
masks (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
masks, according to the L.A. Times
).
Hamid Hayat's attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, also claims that he had been worn down by the FBI's five-hour interrogation
and confessed to crimes he did not commit. Hamid and Umer Hayat's separate, videotaped confessions were the linchpin of the government's case. Former FBI agent James Wedick Jr., a veteran of 35 years, believed the confessions had been coaxed with intimidation and leading questions. Wedick was never allowed to testify and present his analysis of the confession videotapes at Hamid Hayat's original trial. Prior to being contacted by defense attorneys for Hamid Hayat, Wedick had had no knowledge of or involvement with the case.
The government argued that there is a greater pattern at work. Hamid does at the very least appear to harbor jihad
ist leanings. A government informant taped him saying, in regard to the murder of Daniel Pearl
by Pakistani terrorists: "They killed him. So I'm pleased about that. They cut him into pieces and sent him back. That was a good job they did. Now they can't send one Jewish person to Pakistan." FBI agents also recovered from his room jihadist magazines (e.g. of the Jaish-e-Mohammed
) and a "jihad scrapbook" containing articles praising the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden
. Hamid also carried in his wallet a supposed "jihadi supplication" reading "Oh Allah we place you at their throats and we seek refuge in you from their evils."
Much was made of how Umer Hayat seemed to possess sums of cash unusual for an ice-cream-truck driver with only an 8th grade education (e.g. a $390,000 home with no outstanding debt). According to U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell, Hayat "appears to have access to a significant amount of cash from an unexplained source."
There is also a tenuous family connection to radical Islam
: Umer's father-in-law, Hamid's maternal grandfather, is a prominent leader in the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam
, a conservative, strictly religious political party in Pakistan
strongly associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan
.
Previously, on April 19, 2003, father and son had been stopped at Dulles International Airport
on the way to Pakistan. They were attempting to illegally carry $28,093 in cash out of the country. According to the defense, this was money they had saved to build a vacation home in Pakistan and to pay for Hamid's wedding and the wedding of his sister.
attacks in London
(see 7 July 2005 London bombings
and 21 July 2005 London bombings
). Cote also contacted an excused alternate juror during deliberations.
The hearing was held on April 6, 2007. On May 17, 2007, U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. rejected a new trial for Hamid Hayat, writing in his ruling that the reports of juror misconduct were not credible. Hamid Hayat's defense attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, announced plans to appeal.
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
i descent from Lodi
Lodi, California
Lodi is a city located in , in the northern portion of California's Central Valley. The population was 62,134 at the 2010 census. The California Department of Finance's population estimate as of January 1, 2011 is 62,473....
, California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. His father, Umer Hayat (b. January 5, 1958), was born in Pakistan and emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
in 1976; he is a naturalized
Naturalization
Naturalization is the acquisition of citizenship and nationality by somebody who was not a citizen of that country at the time of birth....
American citizen. Together they were the subjects of the first terrorism trial in the state of California. Both were alleged to be part of, or associated with, a terrorist sleeper cell.
Terrorism charges and trial
In June 2005 Hamid Hayat was arrested and charged with providing material supportProviding material support for terrorism
Providing material support for terrorism is a provision of the USA PATRIOT Act which prohibits material support to groups designated as terrorists. The four types of support described are “training,” “expert advice or assistance,” “service,” and “personnel.” In June 2010 the United States Supreme...
to terrorists, and of lying about it to FBI agents. The prosecution alleged that Hamid Hayat had spent the better part of two years at an al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
training camp in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
, returning in 2005 with an intent to attack civilian targets in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The defense contended that Hayat was in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
to engage an arranged marriage
Arranged marriage
An arranged marriage is a practice in which someone other than the couple getting married makes the selection of the persons to be wed, meanwhile curtailing or avoiding the process of courtship. Such marriages had deep roots in royal and aristocratic families around the world...
. On April 25, 2006, a jury voted to convict Hamid Hayat of one count of providing material support or resources to terrorists and three counts of making false statements to the FBI in matters related to international or domestic terrorism. The maximum penalty for these charges is 39 years of imprisonment. Sentencing was set for July 14, 2006, before U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr.
His father, Umer Hayat, was also arrested and charged with two counts of making false statements to the FBI regarding the investigation of his son and of certain members of the Muslim
Muslim
A Muslim, also spelled Moslem, is an adherent of Islam, a monotheistic, Abrahamic religion based on the Quran, which Muslims consider the verbatim word of God as revealed to prophet Muhammad. "Muslim" is the Arabic term for "submitter" .Muslims believe that God is one and incomparable...
community of Lodi
Lodi, California
Lodi is a city located in , in the northern portion of California's Central Valley. The population was 62,134 at the 2010 census. The California Department of Finance's population estimate as of January 1, 2011 is 62,473....
. Umer's charges ended in a hung jury
Hung jury
A hung jury or deadlocked jury is a jury that cannot, by the required voting threshold, agree upon a verdict after an extended period of deliberation and is unable to change its votes due to severe differences of opinion.- England and Wales :...
. When faced with a retrial for the same offenses, he pled
Plea bargain
A plea bargain is an agreement in a criminal case whereby the prosecutor offers the defendant the opportunity to plead guilty, usually to a lesser charge or to the original criminal charge with a recommendation of a lighter than the maximum sentence.A plea bargain allows criminal defendants to...
guilty
Guilty
Guilty commonly refers to the feeling of guilt, an experience that occurs when a person believes that they have violated a moral standard.Guilty or The Guilty may also refer to:-Law:*Guilty plea, a formal admission of legal culpability...
in exchange for a release with time served
Time served
In criminal law, "time served" describes a sentence where the defendant is credited immediately after the guilty verdict with the time spent in remand awaiting trial. The time is usually subtracted from the sentence, with only the balance being served after the verdict...
.
Debate
The younger Hayat's conviction is controversial in some circles. Supporters of the Hayats believe them to be innocents railroaded by overzealous FBI agents and post-9/11September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
Islamophobia
Islamophobia
Islamophobia describes prejudice against, hatred or irrational fear of Islam or MuslimsThe term dates back to the late 1980s or early 1990s, but came into common usage after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States....
. They cite the occasionally outlandish nature of the confessions, especially Umer's, in particular where he describes a supposed al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda
Al-Qaeda is a global broad-based militant Islamist terrorist organization founded by Osama bin Laden sometime between August 1988 and late 1989. It operates as a network comprising both a multinational, stateless army and a radical Sunni Muslim movement calling for global Jihad...
training camp populated by a thousand men doing "pole vault" practice in ninja
Ninja
A or was a covert agent or mercenary of feudal Japan specializing in unorthodox arts of war. The functions of the ninja included espionage, sabotage, infiltration, and assassination, as well as open combat in certain situations...
masks (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles are a fictional team of four teenage anthropomorphic turtles, who were trained by their anthropomorphic rat sensei in the art of ninjutsu and named after four Renaissance artists...
masks, according to the L.A. Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
).
Hamid Hayat's attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, also claims that he had been worn down by the FBI's five-hour interrogation
Interrogation
Interrogation is interviewing as commonly employed by officers of the police, military, and Intelligence agencies with the goal of extracting a confession or obtaining information. Subjects of interrogation are often the suspects, victims, or witnesses of a crime...
and confessed to crimes he did not commit. Hamid and Umer Hayat's separate, videotaped confessions were the linchpin of the government's case. Former FBI agent James Wedick Jr., a veteran of 35 years, believed the confessions had been coaxed with intimidation and leading questions. Wedick was never allowed to testify and present his analysis of the confession videotapes at Hamid Hayat's original trial. Prior to being contacted by defense attorneys for Hamid Hayat, Wedick had had no knowledge of or involvement with the case.
The government argued that there is a greater pattern at work. Hamid does at the very least appear to harbor jihad
Jihad
Jihad , an Islamic term, is a religious duty of Muslims. In Arabic, the word jihād translates as a noun meaning "struggle". Jihad appears 41 times in the Quran and frequently in the idiomatic expression "striving in the way of God ". A person engaged in jihad is called a mujahid; the plural is...
ist leanings. A government informant taped him saying, in regard to the murder of Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl
Daniel Pearl was an American journalist who was kidnapped and killed by Al-Qaeda.At the time of his kidnapping, Pearl served as the South Asia Bureau Chief of the Wall Street Journal, and was based in Mumbai, India. He went to Pakistan as part of an investigation into the alleged links between...
by Pakistani terrorists: "They killed him. So I'm pleased about that. They cut him into pieces and sent him back. That was a good job they did. Now they can't send one Jewish person to Pakistan." FBI agents also recovered from his room jihadist magazines (e.g. of the Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed
Jaish-e-Mohammed is a Pakistani-based, militant Islamic group established by Maulana Masood Azhar in March 2000...
) and a "jihad scrapbook" containing articles praising the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden
Osama bin Laden
Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad bin Laden was the founder of the militant Islamist organization Al-Qaeda, the jihadist organization responsible for the September 11 attacks on the United States and numerous other mass-casualty attacks against civilian and military targets...
. Hamid also carried in his wallet a supposed "jihadi supplication" reading "Oh Allah we place you at their throats and we seek refuge in you from their evils."
Much was made of how Umer Hayat seemed to possess sums of cash unusual for an ice-cream-truck driver with only an 8th grade education (e.g. a $390,000 home with no outstanding debt). According to U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell, Hayat "appears to have access to a significant amount of cash from an unexplained source."
There is also a tenuous family connection to radical Islam
Islam
Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...
: Umer's father-in-law, Hamid's maternal grandfather, is a prominent leader in the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam
Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam
The Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam is a political party in Pakistan. It formed a combined government in national elections in 2002 and 2008...
, a conservative, strictly religious political party in Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
strongly associated with the Taliban in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
.
Previously, on April 19, 2003, father and son had been stopped at Dulles International Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport
Washington Dulles International Airport is a public airport in Dulles, Virginia, 26 miles west of downtown Washington, D.C. The airport serves the Baltimore-Washington-Northern Virginia metropolitan area centered on the District of Columbia. It is named after John Foster Dulles, Secretary of...
on the way to Pakistan. They were attempting to illegally carry $28,093 in cash out of the country. According to the defense, this was money they had saved to build a vacation home in Pakistan and to pay for Hamid's wedding and the wedding of his sister.
Motion for a new trial
After his initial conviction Hamid Hayat sought a new trial, for which his attorneys, Wazhma Mojaddidi and Dennis Riordan, filed a motion on the grounds of misconduct by jury foreman Joseph Cote as well as other court misconduct. Cote allegedly used racial slurs during the trail and compared Hayat to the Pakistani men who had conducted the recent terroristIslamic extremist terrorism
Islamic terrorism is acts of terrorism committed by Muslims for the purpose of achieving varying political and/or religious ends. Islamic terrorism has been identified as taking place in the Middle East, Africa, Europe, Southeast Asia, and the United States since the 1970s...
attacks in London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
(see 7 July 2005 London bombings
7 July 2005 London bombings
The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks in the United Kingdom, targeting civilians using London's public transport system during the morning rush hour....
and 21 July 2005 London bombings
21 July 2005 London bombings
On 21 July 2005, four attempted bomb attacks disrupted part of London's public transport system two weeks after the 7 July 2005 London bombings. The explosions occurred around midday at Shepherd's Bush, Warren Street and Oval stations on London Underground, and on a bus in Shoreditch...
). Cote also contacted an excused alternate juror during deliberations.
The hearing was held on April 6, 2007. On May 17, 2007, U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. rejected a new trial for Hamid Hayat, writing in his ruling that the reports of juror misconduct were not credible. Hamid Hayat's defense attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, announced plans to appeal.