|
Hayat sez al-Qaeda training camp was like the Foot Clan from Ninja Turtles
The AP writer is pooh-poohing this, but I'm honestly not all that surprised given everything else we've seen over the last several years. Fred has compared the current crop of villains to bad thriller novels, but I suppose 1980s cartoons are at least as good a comparison. As I've said before, I think that a lot of the reason that the administration is so unwilling to disclose the true realities of the threat to the public is that the current crop of villains look not like Nazis or Communists but rather like refugees from a set of comic book villains, right down to the evil Fu Manchu-style leader.The government painted an ominous portrait of Hamid Hayat and his father after arresting them nearly 10 months ago and charging them with lying about whether Hamid attended a terrorists' training camp in Pakistan. The accusations depicted Hamid Hayat as so mesmerized by terrorist ideology that he sought to carry out a holy war against hospitals and even grocery stores. But four weeks into their trial, the picture is far murkier. While prosecutors have played portions of videotaped interrogations showing them confessing to FBI agents, their lawyers played the same tapes, arguing that the confessions in broken English were little more than parroted responses to leading questions. The government says Hamid Hayat was a pawn in a network of al-Qaida-trained operatives awaiting orders to strike U.S. targets. His lawyer says Hamid was merely a directionless 23-year-old who last worked in a fruit-packing shed and was prodded into talk of jihad by a paid informant. Part of his father's purported confession sounds oddly like an episode of "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles." This week, midway through the prosecution case, the Hayats' separate juries will be brought together for the first time to hear expert testimony that will attempt to put the trial into the context of global terrorism. It's an important case despite the lack of hard evidence of a confirmed terrorist plot, said security consultant Howard Safir, a former New York City police commissioner. "We can't minimize the fact that al-Qaida was trying to set up cells in the United States," said Safir, who also held posts with the U.S. Marshall's Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration. "I think al-Qaida is like the Statue of Liberty: 'Send me your hungry, your poor ' They'll take anybody and see if they're useful." Prosecutors allege that Hamid Hayat attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and returned last May to his home in Lodi, a wine-growing center 35 miles south of the state capital. According to trial transcripts, he was awaiting orders to attack targets that included hospitals, banks and grocery stores. When an FBI agent asked him to explain why food stores were possibilities, Hayat responded "I think just to hurt people," according to a transcript of the interrogation. Hayat's father, Umer, 48, is charged with lying when he denied knowing about the camps or his son's attendance. During his own interrogation, Umer Hayat said potential targets included federal buildings such as the White House and Pentagon. Defense lawyers have sought to show that the confessions are useless, saying both men were tired and merely told agents what they thought they wanted to hear. The Hayats' answers often were inconsistent and frequently show the men simply agreeing in broken English with incriminating statements made by FBI agents. In one video played to jurors last week, Umer Hayat admitted visiting several terrorist training camps, including the one allegedly attended by his son. But his account sometimes bordered on the fantastic, with tales of a thousand terrorists wearing masks "like Ninja Turtle" as they practiced twirling curved swords, firing automatic weapons and pole-vaulting rivers in an immense underground compound a description that roughly tracks the Ninja Turtles television show. "Confessions are powerful evidence. False confessions are unbelievably rare but they happen," said Dr. Michael Welner, a forensic psychiatrist at New York University School of Medicine and a frequent consultant to both prosecution and defense attorneys. "The most compelling aspect that helps the defense is the inconsistency and that these statements are all over the map." Hamid Hayat is charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI and with providing material support to terrorists. He faces up to 39 years in prison if convicted. His father is charged with two counts of making false statements and faces 16 years in prison. Both men pleaded not guilty. Posted by: Dan Darling 2006-03-12 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=145224 |