• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

California man found guilty in terrorism case

Posted on: Tuesday, 25 April 2006, 22:13 CDT

By Michael Fitzgerald

SACRAMENTO, California (Reuters) - Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Pakistani-American, was found guilty on Tuesday of providing material support to terrorists and lying to investigators probing alleged links to terror training camps.

Hayat faces up to a 39-year prison term when he is sentenced on July 14.

"Today's verdict makes clear that we can prevent acts of terrorism by winning convictions against those who would plot to commit violence against our citizenry in the name of an extremist cause," U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said in a statement.

Defense lawyer Wazhma Mojaddidi said she would challenge the verdict. "There are issues with the jury being influenced outside of the court," she told reporters. "An innocent man has been found guilty."

The verdict by the jury in Sacramento, California, came hours after U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell declared a mistrial in the case of Hayat's father, Umer Hayat, 48, who had been charged with lying to investigators during the same terrorism probe.

Jurors had been deadlocked in the case in which prosecutors had charged him with lying during a probe into whether he and his son Hamid, both of Lodi, California, had links to terrorism training camps in Pakistan.

"Each juror felt they had gone as far as they could go and no one was going to change their minds," said Carol Davis, a spokeswoman for the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California in Sacramento.

Umer and Hamid Hayat initially told investigators they had no knowledge of terrorist training camps in Pakistan. But later in videotaped confessions the elder Hayat said he visited several camps as an observer, including a camp where his son had said he had trained.

Defense attorneys in court said the two told investigators what they wanted to hear.

The elder Hayat felt pressured into making a confession, defense lawyer Johnny Griffin said. "He knew his son was being held and he believed they would let him and his son go if he cooperated," Griffin told Reuters.

"He's not a terrorist. There is no evidence he is a terrorist," Griffin said. "Hopefully the government will not retry this case."

U.S. Attorney Scott said the government would be weighing its options ahead of a May 5 status hearing.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested Hayat, an ice cream truck driver, and his son in June 2005. The FBI's probe was aided by an informant in the Muslim community of Lodi, a farm town south of Sacramento, the state capital.

Source: REUTERS

More News in this Category