A California man was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison Monday for attending an al-Qaida terrorist training camp in Pakistan and plotting to attack targets in the United States. Hamid Hayat, a U.S. citizen who turned 25 on Monday, was convicted in April 2006 of providing material support to terrorists and lying about it to FBI agents. Prosecutors said he intended to attack hospitals, banks, grocery stores and government buildings.
Federal Judge Garland Burrell Jr. said Hayat had "returned to the United States ready and willing to wage violent jihad when directed to do so."
His defense lawyer, Wazhma Mojaddidi, has said those sentiments were nothing more than the idle chatter of a directionless young man with a sixth-grade education. She said the government had no proof her client had ever attended a terrorist training camp. Ultimately, jurors were swayed by a confession that was videotaped during a lengthy FBI interrogation.
| "Lies! All lies! ... whaddayamean, the tape was rolling?" |
Hamid Hayat's father also was caught up in the case, but a federal jury deadlocked on whether he had lied to federal agents about his son's attendance at the camp. Umer Hayat later pleaded guilty to lying to a customs agent about why he was bringing $28,000 in cash to Pakistan several years earlier.
| For the Widows Ammunition Fund? |
The case against the Hayats grew from a wider federal probe into the 2,500-member Pakistani community in Lodi, a farming and grape-growing region about 35 miles south of the state capital. That investigation began shortly after the 2001 terror attacks and focused on whether Lodi business owners were sending money to terror groups abroad. |