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Home Front: WoT

Lodi is the site of the latest US terror prosecution

2006-03-23

Naseem Khan blended right into the Pakistani community when he moved to this quiet farming area south of Sacramento. An immigrant who spoke Pashto and Urdu, he had lived there briefly once before, made friends easily and attended the local mosque. Today, Khan's anonymity is long gone. The convenience store clerk-turned-FBI informant is the star prosecution witness in the trial of Umer and Hamid Hayat, a father and son accused, respectively, of supporting terrorism and lying about it to the government. Hamid Hayat, 23, faces charges of providing material support to terrorists for allegedly attending an al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, as well as for lying to investigators during an interrogation. In a joint trial, Umer Hayat, 48, an ice cream vendor, is accused of making false statements to the FBI to protect his son. Hamid Hayat faces as much as 39 years in prison; his father, 16. The case is built on Khan's infiltration of Lodi's small Pakistani community from 2002 to 2005. Earlier this month, prosecutors put Khan, 32, on the stand, where he told jurors that Hamid Hayat had talked about attending a training camp. Jurors also saw videotapes of both defendants first denying and then admitting to investigators that Hamid Hayat had attended the camp. But last week, Khan shocked observers of the trial by asserting that al-Qaeda's second-in-command had passed through Lodi in 1998 or 1999, raising doubts about his credibility that the defense has begun to exploit. The Lodi case is the latest in a string of prosecutions brought since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks under a law that criminalizes providing "material support" to terrorists. The government's success with the previously obscure statute has been mixed. It has won convictions in high-profile cases in Northern Virginia, in Lackawanna, N.Y., and in the New York City trial of radical lawyer Lynne Stewart. It has lost prosecutions in Detroit, Idaho and Tampa. The Lodi case provides a rare, detailed look at how one FBI informant functioned and raises questions about the effectiveness of the government's strategy of infiltrating the community with an outsider. Defense lawyers say their clients' arrests were made in desperation because there wasn't any real terrorist activity to find in Lodi. They contend that Hamid Hayat was given to grandiose exaggerations. At trial, they played hours of the videotaped FBI interrogation, which appears to show the two men, whose English was limited, agreeing with FBI agents instead of offering information. "They were after big fish," Umer Hayat's attorney, Johnny L. Griffin III, said of investigators. "They couldn't get the big fish, and they had to get someone." Assistant U.S. Attorney Laura Ferris declined to comment. The FBI paid Khan more than $200,000 to move to Lodi, a city of 56,000, according to court testimony. He took an apartment near the Lodi Muslim Mosque and befriended Hamid Hayat, a lean young man with a black goatee, imperfect English skills and few friends. Hayat had a sixth-grade education and followed Pakistani politics, including the movements of radicals, court testimony has shown. Khan visited the Hayat home at least a dozen times and had lengthy phone conversations with Hamid Hayat, which he secretly recorded. Transcripts of those calls reveal that Khan talked with Hayat about girls, cricket and, over time, politics and terrorism. Khan feigned a radical streak and an interest in jihad. In 2003, Hamid Hayat went to Pakistan but kept in touch with Khan. In transcripts of their phone calls, he told Khan that he planned to attend a militant training camp but sheepishly admitted he had not yet done so. Khan encouraged him, saying, "Be a man" and "You're wasting time." "I was just making conversation with him," Khan told Hamid Hayat's lawyer at the trial this month. Under further questioning, Khan acknowledged that Hayat never told him he had attended the camp -- only that he would go in the future. Under FBI interrogation, Hayat first denied, then acknowledged, that he had spent months at a training camp near Rawalpindi, Pakistan, that he said was run by al-Qaeda. In June 2005, Hayat returned to the United States and was brought in for questioning. His father accompanied him, and both were arrested. They have been in jail ever since. While Hamid Hayat was in Pakistan, Khan befriended two imams of the Lodi mosque, according to court testimony. They soon became suspicious and warned others to avoid him. Several days after the Hayats were arrested, the two imams and one of their sons were detained on immigration violations. They were deported but not criminally charged. One of the imams had been in conflict with another over the construction of a Muslim religious school. Some in Lodi suspect that political opponents reported the imams to the FBI. Across the street from the Lodi mosque on a recent afternoon, children played basketball while men in traditional Pakistani dress watched over them or milled around the entrance to the mosque, a low-slung yellow building in a ramshackle neighborhood of single-family houses. Taj Khan, a local activist and a 25-year resident of Lodi, said the investigation and prosecutions have wreaked havoc on the community. "People are scared. People are having nightmares, I'm being told," said Khan, who is not related to the FBI informant. Taj Khan was part of a cross-cultural effort that sought to build bridges between Christians, Jews and Muslims in a town in which the Pakistani community dates to the 1930s. "This event has put a big lid on all that," he said. "This thing has set us back quite a few years." Naseem Khan's credibility suffered a blow last week when he maintained he had seen al-Qaeda's second-ranking leader, Ayman al-Zawahiri, at the mosque in 1998 or 1999 -- a statement that Brian Jenkins, an authority on terrorism at Rand Corp., calls "far-fetched." FBI documents released last week show that Khan first made the assertion when agents approached him in 2001. At that time, Khan also told the FBI that he had seen Abdelkarim Hussein Mohamed al-Nasser, a suspect in a 1996 Saudi Arabia bombing, in Lodi, and Ahmed Mohammed Hamed Ali, a suspect in the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya, in Stockton, Calif., in 1999. Terrorism experts believe that none of those suspects was in the United States at that time, though al-Zawahiri is known to have passed through the country on a fundraising trip in 1993. The misstep for the prosecution shows one of the possible pitfalls of using confidential informants in terrorism cases, said Robert M. Chesney, a law professor at Wake Forest University in North Carolina. "The FBI has been correctly critiqued for not having agents from these communities," he said. "Since they don't have them, they're going to informants . . . and with informants you often have credibility problems." Chesney cautioned that "having an unexpected but clearly wrong thing being said doesn't help, but it's not dispositive, either." The videotaped confessions are still strong evidence, he said. "I'm not a betting man, but if I was, I certainly wouldn't bet on the jury discounting confessions unless they've got some fairly specific facts that show their wills were overcome," he said.

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Home Front: WoT

Experts doubt that Ayman was in Lodi

2006-03-15

An FBI informant shocked a Sacramento federal courtroom this week when he testified that he had frequently seen Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader in a mosque here during 1998 and 1999. But terrorism experts and even federal officials expressed serious doubts Tuesday about Naseem Khan's testimony, saying there is little aside from his statements to suggest that Egyptian terrorist Ayman Zawahiri spent time in the sleepy Central Valley farming community. Defense attorneys said the statements raise serious credibility issues about Khan, the government's chief witness against a Lodi ice cream truck driver and his son. If Khan's reliability becomes a factor in the case, the prosecution of Umer Hayat, 48, and his son, Hamid Hayat, 23, could become the latest in a long string of problems the federal government has faced in trying alleged terrorists. Earlier this week, a Virginia judge halted the sentencing trial of Al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui in order to investigate apparent witness tampering by a federal attorney in the case. Elsewhere, prosecutorial missteps have prompted judges to toss out convictions, and several juries have sided with the accused. Jurors acquitted a Florida college professor whose support of a Palestinian group prompted a terrorism indictment, while a case flopped against an Idaho computer science student facing prison time for designing a website that included information on terrorists. Khan, 32, testified that he first told the FBI about Zawahiri in late 2001. The bureau subsequently hired Khan and paid him more than $200,000 in salary and expenses to infiltrate Lodi's Muslim community and secretly record conversations there between 2002 and 2005. The younger Hayat is charged with providing material support to terrorism by attending a Pakistani training camp in 2003. Both father and son are charged with lying to the FBI. On Tuesday, the Pakistani community of farmworkers, welders and truck drivers, many of whom have lived in Lodi for generations, reacted to the reports that one of the world's most notorious terrorists may have lived and worshiped here with a mixture of outrage and disbelief that the government would take the testimony seriously. "What would he be doing here? We are Pakistani," said shop owner Mohammed Shoaib. "If there were an Egyptian speaking Arabic somebody would have seen him." Most of the estimated 2,500 Muslims in Lodi speak Urdu or Pashto, two major Pakistani languages. "The FBI should know better," Shoaib said. "We don't know what is coming next. Maybe he'll say he saw Osama [bin Laden] in Lodi or Stockton." National terrorism experts and U.S. officials also expressed doubt that Zawahiri spent time in Lodi, particularly during 1998 and 1999, the years in which Khan said he frequently saw the Egyptian attending the modest brick-and-wood-frame mosque in Lodi. "This is pretty far-fetched," said Rand Corp. terrorism specialist Brian Jenkins. Security consultant Daniel Coleman, former FBI case agent for Osama bin Laden, said that "by 1998, Zawahiri was in Afghanistan and never returned to the United States. He was on TV in Afghanistan in 1998." Several U.S. counter-terrorism officials in Washington, D.C., also dismissed Khan's assertion that he saw Zawahiri "coming or going" from the California mosque. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity and only if their government agencies were not identified, saying they were not authorized to speak about the issue, particularly during a criminal trial. In the years immediately after the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Zawahiri, who speaks fluent English, is known to have visited the United States on several occasions, including one trip to Northern California in 1991 under the assumed name Dr. Abdel Muez. Using the pseudonym, Zawahiri visited mosques in the Bay Area, Sacramento and Stockton and raised money that he said was for Afghan refugees. But federal officials, including one who has long tracked Zawahiri, said they were virtually certain that the Egyptian had not entered the United States after 1995. On Aug. 7, 1998, truck bombs blew up two U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania nearly simultaneously. Within hours, U.S. officials said Tuesday, both Bin Laden and Zawahiri were placed at the top of the FBI's most-wanted list — a designation that was likely to generate thousands of wanted posters with photos of the men for widespread circulation in and outside the United States. "So I don't see him really flitting around California" after that, said one U.S. official. Under questioning by Assistant U.S. Atty. Laura Ferris, Khan testified he was first approached by federal agents in late 2001 at his apartment in Bend, Ore., where he worked as a convenience store manager and McDonald's restaurant worker. Khan testified Monday that as FBI agents questioned him, photographs of Bin Laden and Zawahiri coincidentally appeared on his television screen. He told the agents that he had seen Zawahiri in the Lodi mosque. Attorney Wazhma Mojaddidi, who represents Hamid Hayat, speculated Tuesday that Khan's statements about seeing Zawahiri in Lodi could have triggered the investigation that ultimately led to the case against his clients. "It's possible that he may have sparked this whole investigation with this ridiculous claim," she said. "The government in effect has impeached its own witness." Even the federal agents who followed up on Khan's assertion appear to have quickly abandoned interest in documenting the Zawahiri connection. In hours of videotaped interrogation of Umer and Hamid Hayat filed in federal court, the two were never questioned about knowing or seeing Zawahiri. Basim Elkarra, Sacramento director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said that none of the Lodi residents his group represents was asked by the FBI about Zawahiri's alleged attendance at the mosque. Instead the investigation seemed to target the town's two imams, Mohammad Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed. In the videotaped interrogations, FBI Agent Timothy Harrison describes the imams as "the big fish" in the case. However, both religious leaders were allowed to be voluntarily deported to their native Pakistan. As a result, the case that began with allegations about super-terrorist Zawahiri, ended up as a lone federal prosecution of the Hayats. If convicted, Hamid Hayat faces up to 39 years in prison. His father faces a maximum sentence of 16 years. "They came up short on their investigation and they had to find a way to justify all this expense so they came up with an ice cream truck driver and his son," said defense attorney Johnny L. Griffin, who represents Umer Hayat. After midday prayers at the low-slung Lodi mosque, several worshipers vented their frustration over the federal investigation that has cast a shadow over their community. Parents complained that their children are taunted at school as "terrorists." One man, who identified himself only as a 45-year-old welder who has lived in Lodi for 20 years, said that neighbors with whom he was friendly for years no longer speak to him. "In my neighborhood now, when they see me, they just go inside." Mosque President Mohammed Shoaib, no relation to the shopkeeper of the same name, said Khan's testimony has "divided the community and harmed the Muslim community." Shoaib said he has prayed at the mosque every day for many years and never encountered anyone resembling Zawahiri. "It's total nonsense," Shoaib said.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Pakistani authorities question Khan & Son

2005-08-19

LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistan has started questioning a Muslim cleric and his son who were deported from the United States on immigration charges earlier this week after the father was accused of having terrorist links, the interior minister said on Thursday. Muhammad Adil Khan and his son, Muhammad Hassan Adil Khan, arrived late on Wednesday in the eastern city of Lahore after being deported on Monday from Lodi, California. Intelligence agents were interrogating the two men, who resisted arrest on returning to Pakistan, at an undisclosed location in Lahore, one agent said on condition of anonymity, as he is not authorized to speak to the media. You guys are going to wish you were back in Lodi. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao confirmed that the men had returned to Pakistan, and said the “process” of questioning them had begun. The elder Khan was among five men arrested at a Lodi mosque in June after US authorities infiltrated the local Pakistani community and secretly recorded dozens of conversations over three years. The Khans and another Pakistani wild-eyed cleric, Shabbir Ahmed, agreed to be deported by not contesting US immigration charges.

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Afghanistan/South Asia

Deported Cleric, his son arrive back home from the US

2005-08-18

ISLAMABAD (KUNA) -- A Pakistani Islamic cleric and his son, deported from the United States for violating their visa terms, arrived back home late on Wednesday escorted by the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, sources said. Mohammad Adil Khan, 47, and his son Mohammad Hassan Adil, 19, arrived back home from Toronto in eastern Lahore city, about 370 kilometers from here, airport security sources told KUNA. They said they were taken into custody by Law-Enforcement Agencies (LEA) immediately after their arrival for further interrogation. According to the ICE press release, posted on its website, the deportation of the cleric and his son followed an immigration hearing July 15 in which the pair announced they were abandoning their legal fight to remain in the United States and would return to their native country. Kahn and Adil were taken into custody by ICE on June 6 for violating the terms of their visas, said the release. Khan is a citizen of Pakistan and a trained Muslim cleric, the release said, adding that he first entered the United States in April 2001 to perform religious services at the Lodi Muslim Mosque near Sacramento. A second cleric who was arrested on immigration violations in connection with the same investigation, Shabbir Ahmed, is also to arrive back home next week, said sources. ADDITIONAL: LAHORE, Pakistan - Pakistan has started questioning a Muslim cleric and his son who were deported from the United States on immigration charges earlier this week after the father was accused of having terrorist links, the interior minister said on Thursday. Muhammad Adil Khan and his son, Muhammad Hassan Adil Khan, arrived late on Wednesday in the eastern city of Lahore after being deported on Monday from Lodi, California. Intelligence agents were interrogating the two men, who resisted arrest on returning to Pakistan, at an undisclosed location in Lahore, one agent said on condition of anonymity, as he is not authorized to speak to the media. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao confirmed that the men had returned to Pakistan, and said the “process” of questioning them had begun. "Ahmed, the Number Seven truncheon, please. Only the best for our guests from America." The elder Khan was among five men arrested at a Lodi mosque in June after US authorities infiltrated the local Pakistani community and secretly recorded dozens of conversations over three years. The Khans and another Pakistani cleric, Shabbir Ahmed, agreed to be deported by not contesting US immigration charges. An FBI agent had testified that Ahmed was acting as an intermediary for Osama bin Laden and other terrorists. The agent refused to testify whether Ahmed was a member of a terror group, saying that information was classified. Another FBI agent testified that Khan got orders from Jalaluddin Hoqqani, a Taleban commander tied to bin Laden and passed them to Ahmed. The agent provided few details of the training camp that was alleged to be part of a planned religious school in Lodi, but said “individuals would be taught ... to commit acts of violence against the US

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Home Front: WoT

Lodi holy man tied back to Binny

2005-08-10

The FBI is now drawing a link between their terror investigation in Lodi and Osama bin Laden. The government believes al Qaeda was trying to set up a school in Lodi to recruit terrorists. The accusations from the FBI came Tuesday morning during an immigration hearing for Shabbir Ahmed. He's the 39-year-old religious leader of the Lodi mosque -- one of five men connected to the mosque that have been arrested on immigration charges. Today the government drew links to all five and then to Osama bin Laden. The FBI says it has information that two of the religious leaders at this Lodi mosque were acting as intermediaries for Osama bin Laden. Agents say Hamid Hayat and his father Umer Hayat confessed after being arrested in June. Agents say Hamid Hayat admitted attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and his father admitted financing his son's trip. And both named Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Kahn and as part of the al qaeda chain of command. Shabbir Ahmed and Adil Kahn are both represented by defense attorney Saad Ahmad. Saad Ahmad, defense attorney: "You know I just believe the government believes two men who lied to the FBI who are charged with lying to the FBI." Saad Ahmad, defense attorney: "My clients said he made statements against the United States against the United States policy in Afghanistan but he was never against the United States but when he came to the U.S. he started liking it even more." Hamid Hayat and his father are charged with lying to the FBI. Both at first denied any connection to terror training. Today, Shabbir Ahmed admitted to the court he did make speeches against the U.S. and may have encouraged Pakistanis to defend bin Laden, but that was four years ago in Pakistan. Defense attorney Ahmed said the most damaging evidence today came from the FBI organization chart showing a direct link from Osama bin Laden to a Taliban commander and then to Sabbir Ahmed and Muhammed Adil Kahn. Lawyers for the government would not be interviewed, neither would the FBI. But in court today the lead agent said they have secretly taped conversations between several of the five men arrested in Lodi. Umer Hayat and his son are awaiting trial. Adil Kahn and his son have agreed to be deported. That should happen next week. Shabbir Ahmed wants to stay here and his immigration hearing is set for late October. Today, the judge decided to keep him in custody saying he considers Ahmed flight risk and a threat to the community. None of the five has ever been accused of terrorist crimes.

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Home Front: WoT

Lodi probe expands - 6 other men may have attended al-Qaeda camps

2005-07-08

The FBI is investigating the possibility that six other Lodi-area men attended terrorist training camps in Pakistan in addition to Hamid Hayat, the initial suspect arrested in the government's ongoing probe of al-Qaida connections in the San Joaquin city. According to federal court documents obtained by The Bee, Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer, claimed the suspected Lodi jihadists reported to Muhammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed, two imams they say came to the Lodi Muslim Mosque from Pakistan to groom students for terrorist training camps. Khan and Ahmed are being held for allegedly violating immigration laws, and through their attorney have denied being involved in terrorist activities. Ice cream vendor Umer Hayat, 47, and his son Hamid, 22, have been charged with lying about their involvement in an al-Qaida training camp near Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Though neither has been charged with terrorism, the government claims Hamid Hayat - with financial help from his father - attended the camp for six months in 2003-04. The Hayats first denied, then admitted, and now deny the charges, according to prosecutors. The Pakistani government has steadfastly denied there are terrorist training camps in Pakistan. The documents lay out interviews with the Hayats that allegedly detail the younger Hayat's transformation into a jihadist - a warrior against the enemies of Islam. The attorneys for the Hayats, Johnny L. Griffin and Wazhma Mojaddadi, have dismissed much of the evidence against their clients as "fluff," but said Thursday a federal judge has prohibited them from discussing the documents. In the documents, the Hayats are said to have outlined the following chain of command: The alleged Lodi-area jihadists "would take their direction" from Shabbir Ahmed, who answered to his former madrassah (religious school) teacher in Pakistan, Adil Khan. Khan, in turn, took orders from the operator of the terrorist training camp near Rawalpindi, Fazler Rehman - whose "boss" is Osama bin Laden. Saad Ahmad, the attorney for Shabbir Ahmed and Adil Khan, has described his clients as men of peace who are not associated with Rehman, bin Laden or any other anti-American terrorists. Before coming to Lodi, Adil Khan was a teacher and administrator at the Jamia Farooqia School, a madrassah with 4,000 students in Karachi founded by his father, Salimullah Khan. Bin Laden, in a 1998 news conference, counted the scholars of the Farooqia school among his supporters, according to the documents. The documents say Umer Hayat alleged "that Jamia Farooqia prepared its students for jihadist training camps" and that "Adil Khan's purpose in America is to develop a U.S.-based madrassah which would serve the same purpose as the madrassahs in Pakistan." According to the documents, Adil Khan first came to America in the 1980s to raise money for his father's Jamia Farooqia school. The highly educated, urbane Khan soon became a welcome speaker at mosques across the country, including the one in Lodi. In the late 1990s, Adil Khan acted to create his own school in America, and set up the nonprofit Jamia Farooqia Islamic Center. He told supporters the school would be open to boys and girls, Muslims and non-Muslims. When he learned the Lodi mosque had bought 7 acres to establish its own school and Islamic center, he formed a collaboration. In the spring of 2001, Adil Khan moved to Lodi to serve as imam. After the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he reached out to Christians and Jews, signing a joint declaration of peace. In early 2002, he recruited a former student from Pakistan, Shabbir Ahmed, to take over as imam while Adil Khan concentrated on developing the Lodi school. Ahmed, 39, has admitted that, while he was an imam in Islamabad, he gave several fiery anti-American speeches after Sept. 11 in protest of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. But, at his June 24 immigration hearing, he denied urging people to kill Americans. "Having come here I see human value and respect for human life - even animals are taken care of here," he told the immigration judge. The documents claim Hamid Hayat "advised he would get his Jihadi mission orders from Shabbir Ahmed, who would get the initial order from Muhammed Adil Khan." Hayat refused to say how he knew this, or what such a "mission" might entail. During his own interrogation, Hayat's father identified several additional members of the Lodi mosque trained in jihadi camps who "take direction from Shabbir Ahmed" and who were taught to target financial institutions and government buildings in the U.S., according to the documents. The documents claim Hamid Hayat initially denied any connection to jihadis, and on June 4 volunteered to take a polygraph test. "His answers to relevant questions were found to be indicative of deception," according to the documents. After about two more hours of questioning, Hamid Hayat admitted he attended a training camp in Pakistan run by al-Qaida for approximately six months in 2003-04, according to the documents. Hamid Hayat said the camp provided training in weapons, explosives and hand-to-hand combat and added that photographs of President Bush and other high-ranking U.S. officials were used for target practice, according to the documents. Hamid Hayat said the camp trained hundreds of people who were allowed to choose where to carry out "their jihadi mission. ... Hamid advised that he specifically requested to come to the United States." His father, Umer Hayat, at first claimed there were no such training camps in Pakistan, but after seeing his son's videotaped confession, admitted he paid for his son's flight to Pakistan to attend the camp and gave him a $100-a-month allowance, according to the documents. Hamid Hayat was born in the United States and at age 9 moved to Pakistan for about nine years before returning to Lodi, relatives said. According to the documents, his father said Hamid first became interested in attending a jihadi training camp as a young teen after being influenced by a classmate at a madrassah in Rawalpindi and an uncle who fought with the mujahedeen in Afghanistan against the Soviet occupation. The madrassah Hamid allegedly attended is operated by Umer Hayat's father-in-law, who Umer Hayat said is a close personal friend of Rehman. Rehman ran the al-Qaida training camp Hamid eventually attended, according to the documents. In an interview with the Associated Press, Umer Hayat's father-in-law, Qari Saeed-ur Rehman, leader of the Jamia Islamia madrassah in Rawalpindi, said his grandson Hamid "never received religious education at my madrassah. There is no terrorist camp here ... all allegations leveled against (the Hayats) by the FBI are a pack of lies." But according to the documents, Umer Hayat said that thanks to his family connections, he was assigned a driver and invited to visit several training camps that taught everything from urban warfare to classroom instruction. The Hayats' trial is scheduled for Aug. 23, but federal prosecutors Wednesday filed a motion seeking to have it postponed while they canvass 40 government agencies for any information on the Hayats. Prosecutors said they need more time to go through the Hayats' computer, cell phone and 2,000 pages of documents seized in a search of their Lodi home. In the motion, prosecutors said a scrap of paper found in Hamid Hayat's wallet at the time of his arrest said, in Arabic, "Lord let us be at their throats, and we ask you to give refuge from their evil." Hamid Hayat's attorney, Mojaddadi, said her interpretation is that the note is "a prayer you say when you're afraid for your safety, and just carrying it with you is supposed to make you feel protected." She said the note "has absolutely nothing to do with the United States." Mojaddadi and Umer Hayat's attorney, Griffin, said they had reviewed the documents seized from the Hayats' home and dismissed them as "fluff." The seizures so far have not produced additional charges against the Hayats, and federal officials have not characterized them - or the imams - as part of an al-Qaida sleeper cell. But federal officials indicate they are investigating possible violations of Patriot Act provisions that make it a crime to give "material support" to foreign terrorist organizations. Under these statutes, such support includes money, weapons, lodging or training. The statutes outlawing material support were key to the prosecution and convictions of six young men from Lackawanna, N.Y., who admitted attending al-Qaida training camps in Afghanistan in April 2001. While there, they said, they received weapons training and met bin Laden. In early 2003, all six pleaded guilty and were each sentenced to between seven and 10 years in prison. Officials close to the Lodi investigation say that they are building a similar case but are not yet ready to file charges on the material support grounds. They indicated it could take months before the CIA and other intelligence agencies provide evidence that could be used to make material support charges stick - if those agencies have such evidence.

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Home Front: WoT

Lodi's an al-Qaeda nest

2005-06-08

FBI agents have arrested a man and his father after the son allegedly admitted attending Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan that taught participants "how to kill Americans," federal authorities said Tuesday. In a case that was still unfolding, officials confirmed that Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer, 47, were taken into custody Sunday. Authorities said late Tuesday that they were still trying to determine whether the arrests represented the discovery of a small network of Al Qaeda sympathizers operating in the agricultural town of Lodi, 40 miles south of Sacramento. The arrests came days after the younger man was discovered aboard a San Francisco-bound plane even though his name appeared on a "No Fly" list of suspected extremists. At the time, according to an FBI affidavit, Hayat was returning to the U.S. after having visited Pakistan. According to the affidavit, he told agents that after attending Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004, he was given his pick of where to carry out his terrorist mission. "Hamid advised that he specifically requested to come to the United States to carry out his jihadi mission," the affidavit says. "Potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores." While Hayat and his father remained in custody on charges of lying to federal authorities, family members denied that the ice cream truck driver or his son, who works in a fruit-packing plant, had any links to terrorism. "The charges are totally false," said a female cousin of Hayat who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Lies! All lies!" The family lives in a one-story house a block from Lodi's mosque. The cousin said Hayat's most recent trip to Pakistan had nothing to do with terrorism. Rather, she said, he went with his mother to arrange some marriages and visit relatives. Hayat is the oldest of four children and was born in Lodi, according to the cousin. He went to Pakistan at the age of 9 "to memorize the holy Koran," she said. Dozens of FBI agents arrived at the home early Tuesday, family members said, and seized videocassettes, photographs, fax machines, prayer books and other items. Federal authorities declined to provide details about the case. "All I can say is that this investigation is continuing," Sacramento FBI spokesman John Cauthen said. But other law enforcement sources suggested Tuesday that the arrests followed a lengthy investigation by federal counterterrorism officials and would result in other arrests. "These guys have been on the radar for awhile," said one official, referring to the Hayats. "And this case has more to it than just these two guys." According to the seven-page FBI affidavit that was unsealed Tuesday, Sacramento FBI officials were first contacted at 5:30 a.m. on May 29, with information from FBI headquarters that Hayat would attempt to enter the U.S. later that day on a flight from Korea that was bound for San Francisco International Airport. Sacramento Agent Pedro Tenoch Aguilar, in the affidavit, said authorities determined Hayat was en route to the U.S. despite being on a "No Fly" list. The plane, according to Aguilar's statement, was diverted and allowed to land in Japan for refueling. While in Japan, Hayat was interviewed by an FBI agent and denied having any connection to terrorism. He was allowed to continue his travel to the U.S. Immigration records cited in the FBI agent's affidavit show that the Lodi man left Pakistan on May 27. The records also showed that he had previously traveled to Pakistan in April 2003. Last Friday, according to the affidavit, Hayat was interviewed by FBI agents in Sacramento and specifically asked if he had ever attended any terrorist training camps. He said he would never be involved with extremists The next day, Hayat voluntarily arrived at the FBI's Sacramento office with his father to take a polygraph examination the agents requested. After the test indicated some deception in his answers, Hayat acknowledged that he had attended a training camp in Pakistan for six months in 2003 and 2004, according to the affidavit. Hayat described the camp as providing training in weapons, explosives, hand-to-hand combat and other paramilitary exercises, the affidavit says. During his weapons training, he said, photos of various high-ranking U.S. political figures including President Bush were pasted onto the targets and he and others were trained on "how to kill Americans," according to the agent's statement. Hayat also said he observed hundreds of people from various parts of the world attending the camps. His father, according to the affidavit, also told FBI agents at first that there were no terrorist training camps in Pakistan. He prob'ly just did that to make them squirt coffee out their noses... But after being shown a videotape of his son's statement, the affidavit says, Umer Hayat told agents he had supported his son's time in Pakistan by, among other things, providing him a $100 monthly allowance, knowing that his intention was to attend a terrorist camp. The elder Hayat also allegedly told authorities that he observed training in weapons and urban warfare at several camps, the affidavit says. Umer Hayat told the agents that his son became interested in attending a terrorist training camp as a teenager, influenced by a classmate in Pakistan and an uncle who had fought with the mujahedin in Afghanistan, the affidavit says. Several other family members and friends of the Hayats also were involved in a religious school that sent students to the training camps, the affidavit says. Both men were being held in federal detention after a brief court appearance Tuesday in Sacramento. While authorities would not comment on whether others have been arrested, local Muslim leaders reported the detentions of two other individuals: an imam at the Lodi mosque and another religious leader affiliated with an Islamic center in Sacramento. Lodi has a sizable Pakistani population.

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California father and son linked al-Qaeda, arrested

2005-06-08

A father and son were in custody Wednesday after federal authorities arrested the U.S. citizens when the younger man allegedly confessed that he attended an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan to learn "how to kill Americans." Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, were arrested Sunday on charges of lying to federal agents and appeared in court Tuesday. According to prosecutors, Hamid Hayat trained with explosives and other weapons, using photographs of President Bush and other political leaders as targets. The Sacramento Bee reported his age as 22; the Los Angeles Times said he is 23. Umer Hayat was charged in the complaint with lying about his son's involvement and his own financing of the terror camp, which an affidavit released by prosecutors said was run by a close friend of Umer Hayat's father. Relatives denied the charges and Umer Hayat's attorney, Johnny Griffin III, called the allegations "shocking" but said his client "is charged with nothing more than lying to an agent." A female cousin of Hamid Hayat, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Times that "the charges are totally false." U.S. Magistrate Judge Peter Nowinski denied a bail request for the elder Hayat, saying he was "a flight risk and a danger to the community." "He just returned from Pakistan where he built a new home and contributed financial assistance to an al-Qaida-sponsored program training his son and others to kill Americans whenever and wherever they can be found," the Bee quoted Nowinski as saying. Hamid Hayat's attorney was not present for the court hearing, and Nowinski set a bail hearing for him on Friday. Hamid Hayat's name was on the U.S. "no fly" list of suspected extremists, the Los Angeles Times and Sacramento Bee reported, and on returning from Pakistan on May 29 his flight was diverted to Japan, where he was questioned. He was allowed to continue on, and was then questioned in Sacramento by FBI agents. After first denying any link to terrorist camps, Hayat reportedly failed some polygraph questions and then told agents that he attended al-Qaida camps in 2003 and 2004. "Hamid advised that he specifically requested to come to the United States to carry out his jihadi mission," according to the affidavit. "Potential targets for attack would include hospitals and large food stores." The affidavit says Umer Hayat gave up denying that he knew of the terrorist training when he was shown a videotape of his son's confession. FBI agents raided the Hayat home on Tuesday, family members told the Times. They seized videocassettes, photographs, fax machines, prayer books and other items. One law enforcement official told the Times that "these guys have been on the radar for awhile," adding that "this case has more to it than just these two guys." In fact, two other men, Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan, were being held on immigration violations after meeting separately with Umer Hayat on Saturday, the Bee reported. All four men live in Lodi, about 35 miles south of Sacramento. Umer Hayat wore a concealed FBI listening device for the meetings, one source told the Bee, an account confirmed by some of his relatives. Khan is an imam at the Lodi mosque and Ahmed is a religious leader affiliated with an Islamic center in Sacramento, the Bee and Times reported.

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