14 years on, Lodi man freed after judge tosses terror conviction.
Hamid Hayat, the Lodi man who spent 14 years behind bars in a one of the most controversial terrorism cases of the postSept. 11 era, said Sunday that he’s “still in shock” after his release from federal prison in Arizona.
“I’m lost for words,” Hayat said through tears during a news conference in Sacramento, his first public appearance in California since a judge overturned his 2006 conviction, freeing him from prison Friday.
“I can’t believe this day came,” said Hayat, 36. “I still think this is a dream. I wake up and I still think I’m in prison.”
Hayat’s conviction in federal court in Sacramento for allegedly supporting terrorists by training with them in his family homeland of Pakistan was overturned July 30 by a federal judge, who said Hayat’s defense had been harmed by his inexperienced trial lawyer’s failure to call alibi witnesses.
Hayat was sentenced in 2007, on his 25th birthday, to 24 years in federal prison. The main evidence against him was his videotaped statement to FBI agents in 2005 that two years earlier, he had attended a terrorist training camp for three to six months during a family visit to Pakistan.
During Hayat’s trial, his lawyer said the
confession had been coerced by investigators who asked leading questions during a daylong interrogation. Later, attorneys appealing Hayat’s conviction said the trial lawyer had failed to contact a half dozen Pakistani witnesses who would have testified that he had never left his family’s village for more than a week during their stay.
The jury that convicted Hayat also heard a translation of a note, written in Arabic, that was in his wallet when he returned from Pakistan. It read, “Oh Allah, we place you at their throats and we seek refuge in you from their evils.” Prosecutors said the note showed a jihadist mindset.
Hayat’s appellate lawyers said his trial attorney had failed to contact expert witnesses who would have said the note was part of a common prayer, with no sinister meaning.
U.S. Magistrate Deborah Barnes recommended overturning Hayat’s convictions in January, finding that a jury might have acquitted him if he had been represented competently. U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell agreed last month. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott’s office in Sacramento said it was reviewing the ruling.
Hayat joined his legal team, family members and supporters for a news conference Sunday that coincided with Eid alAdha, a religious holiday celebrated by Muslims around the world to mark the sacrifice Abraham made to God. It falls at the end of Hajj, the holy pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina that Muslims are required to make at least once in their lifetime.
“During those 14 years, in all the times I met with Hamid and spoke and communicated with him, never once did I hear a word of rancor or bitterness from him,” said Dennis Riordan, Hayat’s appellate attorney. “That’s extraordinary. Through all of this, his faith sustained him.
“If this experience proved anything to the world, Hamid Hayat is a man of peace,” Riordan said.
Hayat gave brief remarks punctuated by long pauses in which he wept. He thanked the many people who worked to free him during his 14 years behind bars.
“I’ll never be able to pay back none of my brothers and sisters, none of my supporters,” he said. “I’m your guys’ servant until the day of judgment.”
The FBI started investigating Muslims in Lodi shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. After an informant identified both Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, as possible terrorist sympathizers, agents arrested them in 2005 and said they were part of a local terrorist cell.
The Justice Department later admitted that no such cell existed. Umer Hayat, a local ice cream vendor, pleaded guilty to charges of lying to customs agents and served less than a year in jail.
“We’re a normal family living in America. We were innocent and we are innocent,” Raheela Hayat, Hamid’s younger sister, said Sunday.
Critics of the case have pointed to a number of controversial issues. One of the prosecution’s main witnesses was a paid informant who, before focusing on Hayat, reported having seen Osama bin Laden’s chief deputy at a Lodi mosque as late as 1999 — a sighting doubted by national security experts. Community members said the man spoke of “jihad” in an attempt to get others to express radical sentiments. Demian Bulwa, Bob Egelko and Tatiana Sanchez are San Francisco Chronicle staff writers. Email: dbulwa@sfchronicle.com, begelko@sfchronicle.com, tatiana.sanchez@ sfchronicle.com Twitter: @demianbulwa, @BobEgelko, @TatianaYSanchez