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Fighting for Freedom documentary: Hamid Hayat reflects on case that led to wrongful conviction, 14 years in prison

Twenty years ago, a Lodi man falsely confessed to terrorism. Hamid Hayat speaks for the first time in a television interview about the fight to reclaim his life.

Fighting for Freedom documentary: Hamid Hayat reflects on case that led to wrongful conviction, 14 years in prison

Twenty years ago, a Lodi man falsely confessed to terrorism. Hamid Hayat speaks for the first time in a television interview about the fight to reclaim his life.

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    HONESTLY, I’M HERE NOW, AND I STILL FEEL LIKE IT’S A DREAM THAT I’M DREAMING, THAT I’M IN NEW YORK CITY. SO ALL THE VICTIMS OF 911. YOU KNOW, THE MEMORIAL IS REALLY EMOTIONAL FOR ME. BUT THIS IS SOMETHING LIKE. SHOWING PAYING RESPECT TO THE PEOPLE WHO LOST THEIR LIVES OVER HERE. AND LIKE I SAID, EVERYTHING STARTED FOR ME RIGHT HERE. FOR ME, IT WAS I NEVER SAID THIS WAS PERSONAL FOR ME TO COME DOWN HERE. IT DOES HURT IN A WAY. WHAT I GO THROUGH. BUT IT’S OKAY. NO, I DIDN’T DO NOTHING WRONG. SO JUST. WE BELIEVE THROUGH OUR INVESTIGATION THAT VARIOUS INDIVIDUALS CONNECTED TO AL QAEDA HAVE BEEN OPERATING IN THE LODI AREA. 23 YEAR OLD HAMID HAYAT HAMID HAYAT, THE SON, TRIED TO FLY HOME FROM PAKISTAN AND FURTHER STATED THAT HE HAD SPECIFICALLY REQUESTED TO COME TO THE UNITED STATES TO CARRY OUT HIS JIHADI MISSION. WERE YOU THERE FOR SOME SORT OF TERRORIST CAMP? NO. 23 YEAR OLD HAMID HAYAT IS GUILTY, CONVICTED OF PROVIDING SUPPORT OR RESOURCES TO TERRORISTS, THEN LYING ABOUT IT TO THE FBI. I DO BELIEVE THAT THERE WERE ISSUES WITH THIS JURY. THIS WAS THE TERRORISM CASE THAT THE GOVERNMENT WAS PUTTING ON. WORLDWIDE. WE ARE MUSLIMS. DOESN’T MATTER. WE ARE MUSLIM, BUT WE ARE PEACEFUL PEOPLE. MY SON IS INNOCENT. I JUST THINK THAT THEY WERE OUT TO GET A PROSECUTION. MY NAME IS HAMID HAYAT. I SPENT 14 YEARS IN PRISON ON TERRORISM CHARGES, FALSELY ACCUSED. LIVERMORE. HIRAM AL. MALUM. WHO HAS BEEN. SALOMON. AT TIMES. IT DOES GET HARD, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? BUT FOR ME, I’M PROUD TO BE A MUSLIM. YOU KNOW, I MEAN, I’M I MEAN, I’VE BEEN THROUGH A LOT. SO, YOU KNOW, I MEAN, FOR ME, IT JUST MADE ME A STRONGER AND BETTER PERSON AS A HUMAN BEING AND AS A MUSLIM. SO SEND ME A LOVE. LAGUNA. HAMIDA. JUST WHAT MY FAMILY. AND JOINED LIFE. I’M JUST OUT. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? IT’S UNREAL. HONESTLY, I’M STILL, LIKE, HARD TO PROCESS, SO. ASSALAMU ALAIKUM. MUCH LOVE AND TO YOU? HOW ARE YOU? GOOD. YOU WANNA GO TO COWBOYS GAME THIS YEAR? COME TO FRISCO. YOU KNOW THAT THIS YEAR. SUPPORTIVE. REALLY GOOD PEOPLE LIKE YOU. REALLY? LIKE. I WAS JUST TELLING HIM, LIKE, HOW YOU GUYS HELPED ME ADJUST OVER HERE. ALHAMDULILLAH. YOU’RE PART OF IT. I APPRECIATE YOU. WE GOT TO DO WHAT WE CAN. THAT’S ALL. YOU KNOW NOW HE’S ADDICTED TO COFFEE. THIS GUY. I WAS BORN IN STOCKTON, BUT I GREW UP IN LODI. I MEAN, STOCKTON LODI. BOTH WERE ALWAYS HOME TO ME. SO. COMMUNITY WISE, I GO TO THE MOSQUE. I’M ACTIVE OVER THERE AS A COMMUNITY MEMBER. THAT’S PRETTY MUCH IT. LIKE, YOU KNOW, JUST TRYING TO FIT BACK INTO SOCIETY. LIKE I JUST. SHE GOT GOING TODAY. I MEAN, NOT MUCH, BRO. JUST CHILLING. HANGING OUT. YEP. BEEN WITH ME EVERY OTHER WEEK. YEAH. HE SWITCHES IT UP FROM TIME TO TIME. HE ALWAYS TELLS ME, JUST DO WHATEVER YOU THINK LOOKS BEST. YOU KNOW, A LOT OF MAINTENANCE HAIRCUTS. I’VE LEARNED HIS HAIR OVER THE TIME. THAT’S MY ORIGINAL BARBER, THOUGH. YEAH, SINCE DAY ONE, SINCE I’VE BEEN OUT OF PRISON. YEAH. YEP. BASICALLY, ALL THE YOUNG MEN IN THIS COMMUNITY WERE BEING BROUGHT IN AND QUESTIONED BY THE FBI STRICTLY ON THE BASIS OF THEIR RELIGIOUS AND NATIONAL IDENTITY. SO DON’T ASK ME TO TELL YOU WHY THE GOVERNMENT DID THAT, BECAUSE I BELIEVE WHAT THEY DID WAS COMPLETELY WRONG AND UNJUSTIFIED AND. I COULD SAY MORE. AND WE’RE COMING BACK TO HERE TO CALIFORNIA, TO. SFO, AND I NOTICED AIR HOSE THAT COME AND LOOK AT OUR SEAT NUMBERS AND THE WAY SHE LOOKED AT THE SEAT NUMBER. I TOLD MY MOM, I SAID, MOM, I JUST HAVE A FEELING SOMETHING’S GOING TO HAPPEN. FIVE HOURS LATER, TEN HOURS LATER, I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG IT WAS, BUT THEY DIVERTED THE PLANE TO. JAPAN. ITACHI FOR FBI CAME ON THE PLANE AND THEY ESCORTED US AND I COULDN’T COMPREHEND, I COULDN’T I’M LIKE, WHAT’S GOING ON? WHAT HAPPENED? LIKE, I’M JUST. I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW THE QUESTIONS THEY WERE ASKING. LIKE, SOMEBODY REPORTED YOU FOR GANG ACTIVITIES. I’M LIKE GANG ACTIVITIES. I WAS I WAS SHOCKED. I WAS LIKE, WHAT? LIKE THEY’RE NOT BEING CLEAR. THEY WERE LIKE, I FEEL LIKE THEY WERE FISHING AROUND. HE CAME BACK AFTER A WHILE AND THEN SAID THAT YOU’RE CLEAR. YOU CAN GO. NO, IT WAS MAYBE MOST THREE, MAYBE FOUR DAYS. I THINK THE FBI CAME TO MY HOUSE TO LODI. THEY ASKED ME QUESTIONS OR ANYTHING, LIKE ANY LIKE IF I HAD ANY CONNECTION WITH TERRORISM OR ANYTHING, OR ATTENDED ANY CAMPS OR ANYTHING, I’M LIKE, NO, I DENIED EVERYTHING. AND THEY’RE LIKE, OKAY, WOULD YOU LIKE TO WE’D LIKE YOU TO COME DOWN TO THE OFFICE FOR QUESTIONING. MY PARENTS SAID THAT WE GOT NOTHING TO HIDE. WE CAN GO. DO THEY MOVE THE CAMPS FROM ONE AREA TO ANOTHER VERY OFTEN. A LOT OR NOT A LOT. CAN I SAY? BUT THE MISTAKE WE MADE WAS WE SHOULD HAVE TOOK OUR ATTORNEY WITH US, WHICH WE DIDN’T. MAYBE. I’M NOT SURE. YOU’RE WATCHING KCRA 3 REPORTS WHERE THE NEWS COMES FIRST. WE BELIEVE THROUGH OUR INVESTIGATION THAT VARIOUS INDIVIDUALS CONNECTED TO AL QAEDA HAVE BEEN OPERATING IN THE LODI AREA. THIS WAS THE PROVERBIAL BOMBSHELL THAT WENT OFF FOR NORTHERN CALIFORNIA. IT SEEMED INCREDIBLE THAT THESE PEOPLE HAD BEEN LIVING HERE FOR YEARS AND YEARS. UNDER ARREST IS 22 YEAR OLD HAMID HAYAT AND HIS FATHER, UMAIR, WHO IS 47. THE LODI FATHER AND SON ACCUSED OF LYING TO FEDERAL AGENTS ABOUT SUSPECTED TERRORIST ACTIVITIES. IT WAS ALMOST UNBELIEVABLE. PEOPLE WERE AFRAID. EVERYONE WAS TALKING ABOUT IT. IT LED THE NEWSCAST ON KCRA FOR DAYS, IF NOT WEEKS. THE FBI SAYS IT’S BEEN WATCHING THE MEN FOR YEARS. THIS WAS A HUGE DEAL. I REMEMBER HEARING THAT THERE HAD BEEN A TERRORISM ARREST. AND THAT WAS THAT WAS MAYBE THE BIGGEST STORY IN THE COUNTRY. OFFICIALS SAY HE HAD A GENERAL PLAN TO ATTACK HOSPITALS AND GROCERY STORES, BUT NO SPECIFIC PLOT, NO EXACT TARGETS AND NO IMMEDIATE TIMELINE. ALL OF A SUDDEN, NATIONAL MEDIA DESCENDED UPON LODI AND UPON SACRAMENTO TO TRY TO FIND OUT MORE ABOUT THIS SUPPOSED SLEEPER CELL. YOU KNOW, I DROVE OUT THERE. THERE WERE, YOU KNOW, SATELLITE TRUCKS, TONS OF REPORTERS AND THAT HAMID HAYAT SAID, QUOTE, HE WAS AWAITING ORDERS TO FIGHT AMERICANS. SIMPLY PUT, THESE TWO GENTLEMEN WARRANT BEING DETAINED AT THIS TIME. THESE ARE, IN FACT, VERY SERIOUS CHARGES. TURN AROUND. COME ON NOW. IT DIDN’T REALLY HIT ME UNTIL THE ATTORNEYS CAME IN AND SPOKE TO US HONESTLY. I WAS BY MYSELF ALL THE TIME. AND IT WAS IT WAS. IT WAS LIKE IT WAS REALLY HARD FOR ME TO ADJUST IN THE BEGINNING. AND IT WAS I WAS LIKE, MAN, IT GOT TO BE A DREAM. YOU GOT TO BE A DREAM AT THAT, YOU KNOW? SO BUT IT WAS REALITY. I MEAN, THE GOVERNMENT WAS MORE PUSHING FOR LIKE A PLEA DEAL. WHAT DID THEY OFFER YOU? I THINK THEY SAID THAT. GO AHEAD. AND YOU PLEAD GUILTY AND WE’LL LET YOUR FATHER GO. I THOUGHT ABOUT IT HONESTLY, BECAUSE I COULDN’T SEE MY DAD IN THERE. I HONESTLY COULDN’T HAVE. BUT THEN WHEN MY ATTORNEY EXPLAINED TO ME, LOOK, YOU’RE NOT PLEADING GUILTY TO FALSE. I MEAN FALSE STATEMENT. YOU’RE PLEADING GUILTY TO TERRORISM. I’M LIKE, OH, NO, I’M NOT DOING THAT. I DIDN’T DO THAT. SO WHY WOULD I DO THAT? SHE SAID, NO, WE’RE NOT DOING THAT. WE’RE GOING TO GO TO TRIAL. THEY’RE DEVASTATED THAT THEY’RE IN JAIL, AND THEY’RE HOPEFUL THAT THEY’LL GET OUT BECAUSE WE’RE PREPARED TO DEFEND THEM. WE HAD WAZHMA MOJADDIDI, WHO BECAME HAMID’S TRIAL COUNSEL. SHE WAS A NEW ATTORNEY. SHE’S A MUSLIM AFGHANI ORIGIN AND HAD DONE SOME IMMIGRATION WORK, I BELIEVE, AND MAYBE HAD BEGUN TO DABBLE IN FAMILY LAW. SHE DID MAKE ONE POINT VERY CLEAR. SHE SAYS THE CRITICAL LINK IN THIS CASE, THE GOVERNMENT CANNOT PROVE HAMID ACTUALLY ATTENDED A JIHADIST TRAINING CAMP. THE TRIAL WAS NOT ONLY COMPELLING BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF IT, BUT WE’RE ALSO LEARNING NEW THINGS THROUGHOUT THE COURSE OF THE TRIAL. FOR EXAMPLE, ONE OF THE THINGS WE LEARNED IN THE TRIAL THAT IT HAD ALL STARTED WITH THIS FBI INFORMANT NAMED NASEEM CALM. GO, GO GO. BACK BACK BACK BACK. OH, SHOCK. THAT WAS SHOCK. HONESTLY, IT WAS. I WAS SHOCK. SAD. IT WAS AN AWFUL EVENT THAT HAPPENED. IT SHOULD HAVE NEVER HAPPENED. THE INNOCENT LIVES, LIKE PEOPLE LOST OVER THERE. IT WAS. IT WAS SAD. ALL RIGHT. DID YOU KNOW THAT THAT MOMENT WAS GOING TO CHANGE YOUR LIFE? NO. HONESTLY, NO. MILITARY AND FEDERAL WORKERS, MOMS AND DADS, FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS. THOUSANDS OF LIVES WERE SUDDENLY ENDED BY EVIL. MR. BIN LADEN AND OTHER ASSOCIATES OF YOUR TERROR REIGN. YOUR DAYS ARE NUMBERED. YOUR DAYS ARE ABOUT OVER. WE WILL NOT SUCCUMB TO THE FEAR BECAUSE AMERICA REMAINS UNITED AGAINST THE THREAT OF TERRORISM. WHAT WAS THE TENOR LIKE IN IN CONGRESS AT THAT POINT IN THE DAYS AND WEEKS FOLLOWING NINE OVER 11, ANGER AND GRIEF, ANGER AND GRIEF. NOW REMEMBER, THE PATRIOT ACT CAME LATER AFTER THE AUTHORIZATION TO USE MILITARY FORCE, AND EVERYONE THOUGHT THAT THIS WOULD BE A STRATEGY TO KEEP FURTHER ATTACKS FROM OCCURRING. THIS LANDMARK LEGISLATION WILL PROVIDE LAW ENFORCEMENT AND INTELLIGENCE AGENCIES ADDITIONAL TOOLS THAT ARE NEEDED TO ADDRESS THE THREAT OF TERRORISM AND TO FIND AND PROSECUTE TERRORIST CRIMINALS. IT PROVIDES FOR ENHANCED WIRETAP AND SURVEILLANCE AUTHORITY. NOTHING COULD BE MORE IMPORTANT IN OUR CAREERS HERE IN THE CONGRESS, NO MATTER HOW LONG WE STAY, THAN TO PROTECT THE AMERICAN PEOPLE. AND OF COURSE, THE ENVIRONMENT THEN WAS VERY ANTI-MUSLIM, ANTI-ARAB, ANTI-EVERYTHING AND EVERYBODY IN MANY WAYS. AND SO IT WAS OVERLY BROAD AND COULD CREATE A HAVOC ON INNOCENT PEOPLE’S LIVES. THERE’S A LOT IN THIS BILL THAT WE HAVE NOT APPROPRIATELY CONSIDERED, AND THAT’S WHY WE NEED MORE TIME TO THINK OF IT, BECAUSE IT GOES WAY PAST TERRORISM TO MAKE CERTAIN THAT THE PEOPLE WHO SEEK TO TERRORIZE US AND TO KILL OUR CITIZENS ARE BROUGHT TO JUSTICE AND INDEED, EVEN MORE IMPORTANTLY, STOP THESE INDIVIDUALS BEFORE THEY COMMIT THESE HEINOUS ACTS. WE’RE VERY CONCERNED ABOUT THE PATRIOT ACT AND HOW NOW IT’S ACCEPTED TO TARGET EVEN AMERICAN CITIZENS. WE KNEW IT WAS GOING TO GET UGLY. AND AND WE SAW CASES STARTED HAPPENING AROUND THE COUNTRY. BOTH MEN LISTENED INTENTLY AS ATTORNEYS SPENT HOURS QUESTIONING PROSPECTIVE JURORS. DEFENSE ATTORNEY JOHNNY GRIFFIN ASKED POINT BLANK, WHEN YOU HEARD ABOUT THE CHARGES IN THIS CASE, WHAT DID YOU THINK? MANY PEOPLE SAID? 911, TWO SEPARATE JURIES WILL BE SELECTED IN THIS CASE, ONE FOR THE 48 YEAR OLD ICE CREAM VENDOR FROM LODI, THE SECOND FOR HIS SON. IT WAS NOT APPARENT IN THE EARLY DAYS WHAT THEY WERE BASING THE CASE ON. BUT AS THE CASE STARTED TO GO TO COURT AND THEY STARTED TO BE COURT FILINGS, I LEARNED THAT THERE WAS A QUOTE UNQUOTE WITNESS IN THE CASE. SO I IMMEDIATELY WENT BACK TO LODI. I STARTED TALKING TO MY SOURCES, AND IMMEDIATELY PEOPLE SAID, THAT MUST BE THIS MAN NAMED NASIM KHAN. MY NAME IS CLAYTON, AND NASIM LIVED WITH ME AND MY FAMILY HOME HERE IN PRINEVILLE FOR A YEAR. THIS IS THE HOUSE. THIS IS THE PLACE. IT’S A LOT NICER THAN IT USED TO BE. HIS ROOM RIGHT HERE. THAT WINDOW IS WHERE HE STAYED. AND MINE WAS UP ABOVE. HE WAS A GREAT TIME. HE WAS. HE WAS REALLY KIND, YOU KNOW, HE WAS REALLY COOL, REALLY, YOU KNOW, GENEROUS. HE WAS. HE WAS FUN. HE WAS ALWAYS LOOKING OUT, YOU KNOW, FOR ME, ANYWAY. DO YOU EVER TALK ABOUT IT AT ALL ABOUT THE FBI, ABOUT BEING IN A FORMAT OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT? HE DIDN’T WANT TO, YOU KNOW, NOT ONLY WAS HE NOT ALLOWED, YOU KNOW, INITIALLY, YOU KNOW, WE KNEW VERY LITTLE. HE TOLD US VERY LITTLE. BUT AFTER THE FACT, HE REALLY DIDN’T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT AT ALL. AND I SEEM CALM. HAD BEEN LIVING UP IN OREGON WHEN THE FBI APPROACHED HIM IN THE MONTH AFTER NINE OVER 11, LOOKING FOR SOME SORT OF INFORMATION. SEEM CON. IT’S AN EXTREMELY COMMON NAME. SO THEY HAD THE WRONG NASIM KHAN, BUT HE STARTED TALKING. HE WAS A CLERK MAKING MINIMUM WAGE. HE TOLD THE AGENTS THAT HE HAD SEEN AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI IN LODI, CALIFORNIA. NOW ZAWAHIRI WAS BIN LADEN’S NUMBER TWO MAN. AND SO WHEN HE SAID BIN LADEN’S NUMBER TWO MAN WAS IN LODI, CALIFORNIA, EVERYBODY SAID, WHOA, WE GOT TO GET THE LODI, CALIFORNIA. THE SAME CON ACTUALLY WAS IN LODI BEFORE THE THE ATTACKS OF NINE OVER 11. HE GOT PAID HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS OF DOLLARS. YOU KNOW, HE WAS GIVEN A AN SUV AND, YOU KNOW, A PLACE TO LIVE. HE’D BE PERFECT TO SORT OF INFILTRATE THE MOSQUE. SO HE STUMBLES UPON THIS YOUNG MAN, HAMID HAYAT, LOOKING BACK AT IT NOW. OH MY GOD, YOU KNOW. YEAH, I FELT LIKE I HAD AN OLDER BROTHER, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? LIKE SOMEBODY, YOU KNOW, LIKE, TOOK ME UNDER THEIR WING. THE FALSE PREDICATION THAT THE CASE WAS BASED ON, YOU KNOW, SEEING AYMAN AL-ZAWAHIRI IN, IN LODI, YOU KNOW, IT WAS FALSE. DID IT NEVER HAPPEN? AND SO NASEEM KHAN COMES ALONG AND HE STARTS, YOU KNOW, TALKING TO HAMID HAYAT. HAMID HAYAT IS ALSO SORT OF A BRAGGART. AND THIS GUY IS ALL EARS. AND SO THEY BECOME CLOSE VERY FAST. AND THEY TALK ABOUT EVERYTHING. AND HE, HE SORT OF WANTS HE SORT OF GIVES HAMID HAYAT AN OUTLET TO TALK. IN 2003, HE BEGAN SECRETLY RECORDING HUNDREDS OF HOURS OF CONVERSATIONS WITH 23 YEAR OLD HAMID HAYAT ON THE STAND. TODAY, KHAN TESTIFIED. HAYAT TALKED ABOUT THE TALIBAN MARTYRS AND HIS DISDAIN FOR THE U.S. HAYAT, THIS COUNTRY IS MINE IN NAME ONLY. MY HEART IS IN PAKISTAN. THE TWO ALSO DISCUSSED SIGNING UP FOR TERRORIST TRAINING. HAYAT IS HEARD TELLING KHAN HE CAN HELP HIM FIND A CAMP. KHAN, WHO WOULD WE CONTACT TO TAKE US TO TRAINING? HAYAT. WHICHEVER JIHAD GROUP YOU WANT TO DO IT WITH, IT’S UP TO YOU. ANY GROUP? HAMID. AT THE TIME, HE WAS. HE WAS KIND OF A SLACKER. THERE WAS A LOT OF TALK IN THOSE DAYS ABOUT, LIKE, YOU CAN’T BELIEVE ANYTHING THAT AHMED SAYS. KIND OF STATEMENTS THAT HE’D MADE THAT WERE IN POOR TASTE. I JUST RECOGNIZED IT AS BLUSTER. BLUSTER OF A PERSON WHO COMES FROM MY PART OF THE WORLD. YOU KNOW, PEOPLE WHO MAYBE HAVE FELT A LOT OF DISSATISFACTION WITH THE ROLE, YOU KNOW, OF THE UNITED STATES AND OTHER WESTERN COUNTRIES AND AFFECTING THE FATES OF OUR NATIONS. I THINK ONE OF THE MOST EGREGIOUS ONE WAS HE TALKED ABOUT THE JOURNALIST PEARL, WHO WAS KILLED BY THE TERRORISTS, AND HE SEEMED SYMPATHETIC TO THOSE TERRORISTS. BAD. I FEEL BAD, TO BE HONEST WITH YOU, BECAUSE I DIDN’T KNOW. NOW, LOOKING BACK AT IT, I WAS NOT OPEN MINDED. WHAT I SAID WAS WRONG. NOW, WHAT WERE YOU OVER IN PAKISTAN DOING? I WENT, ACTUALLY, MY YOUNGER SISTER GOT MARRIED AT THE TIME. THEN I GOT MARRIED MYSELF. I GOT MARRIED IN MY VILLAGE IN 2005. AT THE TIME, YEAH. SO WAS HE TRYING TO CALL YOU A LOT? YEAH, YEAH, HE WAS. IT WAS THE SAME CONVERSATION, LIKE HE WAS TRYING TO HAVE, LIKE WE WERE HAVING A NORMAL, LIKE, YOU KNOW, ABOUT ALCOHOLISM AND STUFF LIKE THAT. AND THE THRUST OF THOSE CONVERSATIONS, THE ONES THAT WERE MOST IMPORTANT, WAS BASICALLY A NASIM KHAN BERATING HAMID HAYAT. I THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING TO GO TO A TERRORIST CAMP. YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED? YOU’RE SLACKING. YOU’RE NOT DOING ANYTHING BECAUSE THE KEY PARTS OF THESE PHONE CALLS WAS WHEN HAMID WAS IN PAKISTAN. YOU HAVE A GUY WHO WAS THIS CLERK MAKING MINIMUM WAGE. NOW HE’S GOT $250,000 OR CLOSE TO A DRIVING A BRAND NEW CAR. HE SEES THIS COMING TO AN END, AND HE SAYS TO HAMID, IF YOU DON’T GO INTO A TERRORISM CAMP, I’M GOING TO GO THERE, DRAG YOU BY THE NECK AND FORCE YOU TO GO THERE MYSELF. WERE YOU THERE FOR SOME SORT OF TERRORIST CAMP? NO, NOT AT ALL. NEVER DID. I WAS WITH MY FAMILY ALL THE TIME. NEVER WENT NOWHERE. I WENT TO ATTEND A WEDDING. OTHER PART OF PAKISTAN. BUT I WENT WITH MY FAMILY MEMBERS. THE GOVERNMENT’S STAR WITNESS, BORN IN PAKISTAN, NOW A NATURALIZED AMERICAN CITIZEN, NASIM KHAN IS NOW AN UNDERCOVER OPERATIVE WORKING FOR THE FBI. THE DEFENSE REALLY TRIED TO CHIP AWAY AT THAT, YOU KNOW. HOW MUCH WERE YOU PAID? WHY DID YOU SAY THESE THINGS LIKE THAT? YOU SAW TALIBAN LEADERS AND AL QAEDA LEADERS AT THE MOSQUE THAT WERE CLEARLY NOT TRUE, BUT ULTIMATELY, YOU KNOW, THE PROSECUTION DID LEAN ON HIM TO TRY TO BUILD THE CASE. HAMID HAYAT’S DEFENSE ATTORNEY STARTED OUT BY MAKING A SHOCKING STATEMENT. SHE WILL NOT ASK THE JURY TO BELIEVE HER CLIENT. SHE ADMITS HAMID HAS MADE CONFLICTING STATEMENTS, ADDING THE 23 YEAR OLD FROM LODI HAS A LIMITED EDUCATION AND IS PRONE TO TELL STORIES. DO YOU THINK YOU WERE GOING TO LOSE? I HAD NO IDEA WHAT WAS GOING TO HAPPEN. YES, I THINK WE’RE SATISFIED WITH HOW THE CASE IS PROGRESSING AND WE’RE READY TO PROCEED TODAY, JUDGE PETER NOWINSKI ORDERED PROSECUTORS TO TURN OVER ALL OF ITS EVIDENCE IN THIS CASE PERTAINING TO ALLEGATIONS OF LYING TO THE SUSPECT’S ATTORNEYS. BY THE END OF THE DAY. TODAY, JUDGE NOWINSKI COMMENDED OUR OFFICE FOR ACTING EXTRAORDINARILY QUICKLY IN TURNING OVER BY CLOSE OF BUSINESS TODAY, THE INTERVIEW VIDEOTAPES THE GOVERNMENT HAD ONE HUGE PIECE OF EVIDENCE AGAINST HAMID HAYAT, AND THAT IS HE HAD CONFESSED. NOW, MY UNDERSTANDING, HAMID, IS THAT YOU YOU ATTENDED SOME CAMPS. OKAY? AND THAT’S THAT’S TRUE. RIGHT? AND SO WHY DON’T YOU TELL ME SO I UNDERSTAND? I KNOW WHERE YOU’RE COMING FROM. BRING ME UP TO SPEED A LITTLE BIT OF THE CAMPS THAT YOU ATTENDED. I MEAN, WHAT KIND OF CAMP WERE THEY? YES. THEY WERE LIKE, YOU KNOW, LIKE TRAINING CAMPS. OKAY. YOU KNOW, THEY TRAIN YOU. IT WAS A LONGER INTERROGATION. WHAT? I’M NOT SURE. WAS IT TEN, 14 HOURS ALL TOGETHER? SOMETHING LIKE THAT. THEY ASKED ME QUESTIONS OR ANYTHING, LIKE ANY IF I HAD ANY CONNECTION WITH TERRORISM OR ANYTHING OR ATTENDED ANY CAMPS OR ANYTHING, I’M LIKE, NO, I DENIED EVERYTHING. IT’S IMPORTANT TO BE HONEST HERE. YOU CAN CERTAINLY YOU CAN OBSERVE WHERE PEOPLE ARE SLEEPING AND YOU KNOW, THE DIFFERENT BUILDINGS, THE MAKEUP OF THE CAMP ITSELF, MAYBE, MAYBE YOU DID GO TO CAMP. I’M LIKE, NO, I DIDN’T. I KEPT ON DENYING, DENYING, DENYING. I’M LIKE, OKAY, I JUST SAID WHAT THEY WANTED TO HEAR. OKAY, I DID. THAT’S WHAT I SAID. MOST OF THE CAMPS YOU HAD WEAPONS TRAINING. YOU HAVE EXPLOSIVES TRAINING? YEAH, I GOT A PISTOL. THAT’S IT. SO YOU DID PISTOL TRAINING? I DID, AND I’M NOT GOOD AT EITHER. YOU KNOW, WHEN I DO IT. NO, YOU’RE NOT. DOING. WHAT YOU HAVE TO DO IS DO IT LIKE THIS. AND YOU THOUGHT YOU WERE GOING HOME? YES, HONESTLY, I DID. I DID LIKE I DID. HONESTLY. WHAT WAS LIKE THAT MOMENT WHEN THEY SAID, YOU’RE ACTUALLY NOT GOING HOME? I HONESTLY LIKE I DIDN’T AT THE TIME. I DIDN’T REALLY KNOW WHAT WAS GOING ON. I WAS MORE LIKE I WAS TIRED. I WAS LIKE, I COULDN’T I COULDN’T COMPREHEND, LIKE I’M LIKE, MAN, I JUST NEED TO SLEEP. I’M LIKE, I DON’T MATTER WHERE. I JUST NEED TO SLEEP. LIKE I WAS JUST SHUT DOWN. DOES THAT SOUND RIGHT? I REMEMBER THIS RIGHT NOW, OKAY. BECAUSE I’M KIND OF TIRED. I COULDN’T EVEN BARELY FIX UP MY TIMETABLE FOR SLEEPING WHEN I COME BACK. OH, YOU’RE YOU’RE JET LAGGED. STILL. PROBABLY A LITTLE BIT. SO THAT’S OKAY. CAN I GO HOME NOW? CAN I SLEEP LIKE I WAS DEAD? DEAD TIRED. WE’RE GONNA TAKE A LITTLE. TAKE A BREAK HERE FOR A SECOND, I SMOKE A CIGARETTE, GIVE US A MINUTE ON THAT, BECAUSE WE MIGHT. WE MIGHT BE JUST ABOUT DONE HERE. SO ANY CHANCE TO GO HOME OR ANYTHING? THERE’S. WE’LL TALK ABOUT THAT IN A SECOND, TOO. SURE. THEY WERE JUST MOMENTS THAT WERE REALLY, REALLY SHOCKING AND MIND BLOWING. HAMID HAS ALREADY BEGUN TO CONFESS TO THE FBI, AND DURING A BREAK, HE’S IN. YOU KNOW, HE’S IN LIKE A BREAK ROOM WITH ONE OF THE INTERROGATORS, AND HE INVITES THE GUY TO HIS WEDDING RECEPTION, YOU KNOW, BECAUSE HE THINKS HE’S BEING REALLY HELPFUL AND THEY’RE GOING TO BE BUDS. SO COMING BACK HERE TOMORROW. NO, NO, YOU’RE NOT LEAVING HERE TONIGHT. NO, NO, I MEAN TOMORROW. I’M GOING TO BE HERE TONIGHT. STAYING HERE IN THE BUILDING. NO, YOU’RE GOING TO GO. YOU’RE GONNA GO TO JAIL. TO JAIL? YEAH. SO WE’RE GONNA GET A PLACE TO SLEEP OVER THERE LIKE THAT. IT’S JAIL. I MEAN, YOU KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW, IT’S A JAIL, BUT CAN I LAY DOWN ON THEM BECAUSE MY HEAD IS HURTING? I WANT TO SLEEP. IT’S CLEAR THAT HE DIDN’T UNDERSTAND THAT THIS WAS A MASSIVE NATIONAL TERROR INVESTIGATION, INTERROGATION THAT WAS GOING ON IN THIS ROOM IN THE BACK OF THE FEDERAL COURTROOM TODAY, HAMID HAYAT’S MOTHER WATCHED THE ASSISTANT U.S. ATTORNEY SUM UP THE CASE AGAINST HER SON. THE PROSECUTION BELIEVES HAYAT IS A JIHADIST AT HEART AND INTENDED TO USE HIS TRAINING TO ATTACK U.S. TARGETS. THEY FEEL THESE VIDEOTAPES, WHICH WERE RELEASED TODAY, PROVE THAT DURING AN FBI INTERVIEW LAST JUNE. FOR ME, LIKE I WANTED TO LAUGH OUT LOUD. LIKE THE WAY THEY WERE PRESENTING THEIR CASE. I WANTED TO LAUGH OUT LIKE THEY WERE JUST PUTTING, LIKE, EVERYTHING TOGETHER, LYING AND EVERYTHING. LIKE I’M LIKE, OH MY GOD, MAN. LIKE IF HE ACTUALLY ATTENDED A TERRORIST TRAINING CAMP, THE GOVERNMENT WOULD HAVE MORE EVIDENCE. AND IT DOESN’T. THEY TOOK ABOUT TEN DAYS FOR THEM TO DELIBERATE. I REALLY DIDN’T KNOW WHICH WAY IT WOULD GO. I HAD A HARD TIME BELIEVING THAT THEY COULD GET BEYOND REASONABLE DOUBT BECAUSE OF THE NATURE OF THE EVIDENCE. I MEAN, YOU CAN PUT YOURSELF IN THE PLACE OF THOSE JURORS WHO HAD JUST LIVED THROUGH NINE OVER 11 AND WERE BEING TOLD THAT HERE IS SOMEBODY THAT WAS WANTING TO COMMIT A SIMILAR ACT, AND IF THEY DIDN’T CONVICT HIM, HE WOULD GO FREE. AND THEN WHO WOULD BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THAT? I LEFT IT UP TO ALLAH, LIKE, HEY MAN, THE DECISIONS IN YOUR HAND, I CAN ONLY PRAY ABOUT IT. WHATEVER THE OUTCOME IS, I HAVE TO ACCEPT IT. SO. FIVE, FOUR, THREE TWO. 23 YEAR OLD HAMID HAYAT IS GUILTY, CONVICTED OF PROVIDING SUPPORT OR RESOURCES TO TERRORISTS THAN LYING ABOUT IT TO THE FBI. IT’S A VERDICT THAT HAS THE U.S. ATTORNEY’S OFFICE CELEBRATING. WE’VE WON A VERY RESOUNDING VICTORY AND A VERY IMPORTANT CASE. THE JUDGE SAYS THAT HAYAT IS A THREAT TO AMERICANS AND MUST BE LOCKED UP. WHEN THE DECISION CAME BACK, I WAS NOT EVEN EMOTIONAL OR NOTHING. I DIDN’T LIKE. MY ATTORNEY WAS CRYING. HONESTLY, I KIND OF CALM HER DOWN LIKE IT’S OKAY. I THINK DEEP DOWN THEY KNOW THAT HE’S NOT. HE’S NOT A DANGEROUS PERSON. AND THE LEVEL OF THE CRIME OR THE GRAVITY OF THE CRIME DOESN’T DESERVE THE SENTENCE THAT THEY’RE ACTUALLY ASKING FOR IN COURT. I REALLY DIDN’T, LIKE, FEEL ANYTHING. I’M LIKE, IT IS WHAT IT IS. I’M JUST GOING TO CONTINUE FIGHTING. LIKE, YOU KNOW, I WENT IN, LIKE I SAID, FROM WHEN THE TRIAL, RIGHT BEFORE THE TRIAL, I TOLD MYSELF LIKE, HEY MAN, IT’S GOING TO BE A BATTLE. DON’T KNOW IF IT’S GOING TO END AT TRIAL. WE GOT TO GO FURTHER. BUT I WENT IN WITH THE MENTALITY THAT I’M GOING TO FIGHT TILL THE END FOR MY FREEDOM. THE NEWS JUST OUT OF FEDERAL COURT TODAY, HAMID HAYAT HAS BEEN SENTENCED TO 24 YEARS. THE JUDGE SAID HE WAS BALANCING HAYAT’S CLEAN CRIMINAL RECORD AGAINST WHAT THE JUDGE SAID WAS A WILLINGNESS TO WAGE VIOLENT JIHAD WITHIN THE U.S. AND A LIKELIHOOD, HE SAID HAYAT MIGHT TRY AGAIN. AND AS HAMID HAYAT WAVED GOODBYE TO HIS FAMILY AND HEADED TO PRISON TODAY, COMMUNITY LEADERS SUGGESTED THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT HAS NOW BURNED ITS BRIDGES WITH LOCAL MUSLIMS. I THINK THE GOVERNMENT SENT A CLEAR MESSAGE TO THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY THAT YOU DO NOT SPEAK TO AN FBI AGENT UNLESS YOU HAVE AN ATTORNEY PRESENT, YOU KNOW, 24 YEARS. I THINK THAT’S WHAT YOU KNOW. THEY ANNOUNCED, IF I REMEMBER CORRECTLY, 24 YEARS AND, YOU KNOW, YOUR HEART SINKS WHEN, WHEN THIS HAPPENS. BUT YOU’RE LIKE, OKAY, YOU KNOW WHAT APPEAL. YOU KNOW, THERE’S JUST THERE’S NO WAY HE’S GOT TO, YOU KNOW, GOT TO GET HIM OUT. THERE’S NO WAY THAT THIS IS GOING TO, YOU KNOW, GOING TO FLY. ALL RIGHT. SO LET’S SO YOU GUYS CAN TELL ME HOW LONG WILL THIS CASE TAKE. WELL, THAT’LL THAT’LL BE EXPLAINED TO YOU LATER WHEN WE ACTUALLY. WERE IN INSHALLAH BECOME. LA LA LA LA LA LA LA. LA LA. PEACE BE UPON YOU. O INHABITANT. I’M SORRY. I’M JUST GETTING EMOTIONAL. I. I’M SORRY. WE’RE HERE SOMEWHERE. SOMETHING. IT’S MY GRANDDAD. I WAS INCARCERATED. HE DIED IN 2006. ACTUALLY, THE DAY MY DAD ACTUALLY GOT RELEASED ON BAIL. THE DAY HE DIED. SO MY DAD MADE IT FOR THE FUNERAL ON TIME. HE WAS EXPECTING A JUSTICE OUTSIDE COURT. HAYAT’S FATHER, WHOSE OWN INVOLVEMENT IN THE LODI TERRORISM CASE ENDED LAST YEAR WITH A PLEA BARGAIN, REACTED ANGRILY TO THE JUDGE’S DECISION. WE’RE NOT, YOU. NO JUSTICE FROM JIBRIL, DID NOT SERVE JUSTICE. THAT’S ALL. JUST MINUTES AFTER THAT VERDICT WAS READ, HAMID’S DEFENSE ATTORNEY, MAJID, WAS CRITICIZING THE JURY, SAYING THEY FAILED TO DO THEIR JOB. I DO BELIEVE THAT THERE WERE ISSUES WITH THIS JURY THAT THERE WERE OUTSIDE INFLUENCES THAT AFFECTED THEIR DECISION, AND THAT IT WAS NOT A FAIR AND IMPARTIAL DECISION BECAUSE THEY ULTIMATELY CAME TO THE WRONG VERDICT. WELL, THE CASE WAS HEAVILY PUBLICIZED IN THE BAY AREA AS WELL AS UP IN SACRAMENTO. ACTUALLY, IT WAS PUBLICIZED NATIONALLY. WE WERE SHOCKED TO HEAR OF HIS CONVICTION BECAUSE WE REGARDED THE CASE AS QUITE WEAK AGAINST HIM. AND A LOT OF THE NEWS REPORTS SUGGESTED IT WAS WEAK. HAMID HAYAT’S ATTORNEYS KNOW ARGUING FOR A NEW TRIAL WILL BE DIFFICULT. ONLY A VERY SMALL PERCENTAGE ARE EVER GRANTED. YOU’RE BASICALLY SAYING A JUDGE THAT WAS AN ERROR IN THE TRIAL YOU CONDUCTED. I WAS CONTACTED BY HAMID’S DEFENSE ATTORNEY, WHO EXAMINED SOME VIDEOTAPES THAT REPORTEDLY CONTAINED HIS STATEMENTS MADE TO THE BUREAU. I THINK I USED THE WORDS THAT TODAY WERE THE SORRIEST INTERROGATION TAPES THAT I’VE EVER SEEN. I REMEMBER READING SPECIFICALLY THAT MORNING THAT HE HAD BEEN CONVICTED AND THAT DENNIS REARDON WAS GETTING INVOLVED WITH THAT CASE. I IMMEDIATELY CALLED HIS OFFICE. I JUST REMEMBER HIM TELLING ME THAT HE WAS TAKING ME UP ON MY OFFER. HE TOLD ME IT WAS GOING TO BE A PROCESS. AT THE TIME, THE APPEAL PROCESS. DON’T KNOW HOW LONG IT’S GOING TO BE, BUT MY HOPES WERE LIKE, OKAY, GOT HIGH. SO TO FOR TWO. CUL DE SAC. THE FOURTH ONE. AND THE. ONE THAT THE JAIL. YOU KNOW WHAT? KATHLEEN KELLEHER. THEY THEY PUT IN A STORY ON US. YOU KNOW, THEY THEY THINK THERE IS A TERRORIST IN LODI, AND WHICH WAS NOT TRUE. THEY WAS TRYING TO MAKE A SHOW TO THE GOVERNMENT. WE GOT THE TERRORIST FROM LODI. AND SO UPSET, WHO WAS TRYING TO CRY AND. YEAH. TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA, THAT WAS 2007. WAS THERE FOR ABOUT 15 MONTHS. THEN THEY MOVED ME TO MARION, ILLINOIS. I WAS THERE SAME AMOUNT LIKE 18 MONTHS OR SO. I WAS MORE LIKE, OH MAN, IT’S GOING TO BE HARD FOR ME, MY FAMILY, TO COME DOWN HERE, WHICH THEY DID. THEY CAME ONCE AND I TOLD THEM NEVER TO COME BACK DOWN THIS WAY. I’M GOING TO I’M GONNA TRY MY COME THAT WAY. IT WAS HARD. IT WAS REALLY HARD, HONESTLY. BUT AS A MUSLIM, WE BELIEVE IN PRAYER, DECREE, AND WHATEVER WAS MEANT TO HAPPEN IS GOING TO HAPPEN. SO THAT’S THE MENTALITY I WENT IN WITH. IT WAS LIKE AN ALMOST FOUR YEAR WAIT. AFTER ORAL ARGUMENT FOR THIS OPINION, AND WE WERE SO HOPEFUL. I CALL HOME AND TALK TO MY MOM. IT WAS A NORMAL CONVERSATION, BUT WHEN I SPOKE TO MY DAD, I COULD HEAR IN HIS VOICE SOMETHING WAS WRONG. I’M LIKE, WHY DO YOU SOUND LIKE THAT? MY DAD COULDN’T REALLY EXPLAIN. HE SAID, HEY, TALK TO YOUR MOM. MY MOM HAD TO TELL ME ABOUT IT, BUT IN THE END, THEY AFFIRMED HIS CONVICTION. I KIND OF LOST HOPE AFTER MY APPEAL GOT DENIED IN 2013. THE DECISION CAME BACK TWO ONE AGAINST ME AND. 2013. THERE WERE SOME VERY POWERFUL DISSENTING LANGUAGE IN THERE FROM JUDGE TASHIMA. I THINK THEY WERE BASICALLY GIVING US THE GREEN LIGHT TO FILE A HABEAS AND SAYING, YOU CAN’T LOSE ON HABEAS ON THIS. SO DURING ALL THAT TIME, WE COULD HAVE CERTAIN CLAIMS LITIGATED, BUT WE HAD TO WAIT TO GET TO THE REAL HEART OF THE MATTER. WE HAD TO WAIT UNTIL THE AFTER THE CONCLUSION OF THE APPEAL. I THINK WE ALL FELT THAT WE ALWAYS KNEW THAT WE HAD A STRONG, STRONG SIXTH AMENDMENT CLAIM ON HABEAS FOR INEFFECTIVE ASSISTANCE OF COUNSEL, BUT EFFECTIVELY, THAT WOULD BE IT. SO IT REALLY WAS HIS LAST, HIS LAST SHOT. BUT IN THIS MOTION FOR SUMMARY JUDGMENT FILED JUST YESTERDAY, HIS LAWYERS ARGUE THAT HAYAT’S DEFENSE ATTORNEY WAS INCOMPETENT TO HANDLE HIS CASE. THE LUCKIEST THING FOR THIS GOVERNMENT TEAM WAS THE FACT THAT HAMID’S LAWYER DIDN’T KNOW WHAT SHE WAS DOING. IN THE COURSE OF OUR TALKS WITH HER, WHAT SHOCKED US WAS THAT THERE HAD BEEN AVAILABLE ALIBI WITNESSES IN PAKISTAN WHO COULD HAVE TESTIFIED FOR HAMID, WHO WERE NEVER CONTACTED, AND THAT THE DEFENSE TEAM HAD INSTEAD DECIDED THEY WANTED TO PUSH THE CASE TO TRIAL AS QUICKLY AS POSSIBLE. IN DEPOSITIONS, WAZHMA MOJADDIDI SAYS, I WOULD SAY I HAD NO EXPERIENCE IN CRIMINAL LAW AT THE TIME. IN FACT, SHE WAS AN IMMIGRATION LAWYER WHO STATES, I HAD NEVER BEEN IN A CRIMINAL COURTROOM. YOU HAVE A GOVERNMENT EXPERT WHO’S COMING AND SAYING, YEAH, THE ONLY EVIDENCE THAT WE HAVE THAT HE WENT TO CAMP IS HIS OWN STATEMENT, WHICH WAS COERCED. AND WE’RE NOT HAVING AN EXPERT COME IN AND TALK ABOUT THE NATURE OF THAT CONFESSION. EXPERT TESTIMONY ON COERCED CONFESSION. HIS ANSWERS ABOUT WHAT WHAT HE SAW AT THE CAMP DIDN’T MATCH THE SURVEILLANCE PHOTOGRAPHS THAT THE GOVERNMENT RELIED ON AT ALL. THEY CAN’T EVEN SAY WHEN THIS GUY WENT TO CAMP, WHICH KIND OF SUGGESTS THAT THEY REALLY HAVE NO IDEA. MY APPEAL TEAM EXPLAINED TO ME ABOUT THE WHOLE PROCESS, WHAT WENT WRONG AND EVERYTHING. THE TIME MY ATTORNEY TOLD ME SHE DID WHAT SHE COULD. I MEAN, SHE DID REPRESENT ME IN THE BEST WAY POSSIBLE. I, YOU KNOW, I MEAN, IF I DON’T IF I’M NOT MISTAKEN, SHE NEVER HAD A FEDERAL CASE BEFORE. SHE HAD A LACK OF KNOWLEDGE OF THE LAW. HAYAT’S ATTORNEYS MAINTAINED THAT MOJADIDI WAS IN WAY OVER HER HEAD AND COULD NOT PRESENT A LEGITIMATE DEFENSE FOR HER CLIENT. SHE WAS ASSIGNED TO THE CASE BECAUSE SHE SPEAKS PASHTO AND URDU, NOT APPLYING FOR CIPA. THE CLASSIFIED INFORMATION PROCEDURES ACT. THE DEFENSE DECLINED THAT, AND THEY FORFEITED ACCESS TO ALL BASICALLY OF THE GOVERNMENT’S SO-CALLED EVIDENCE, WHICH I THINK WE WOULD HAVE BEEN ABLE TO DISCOVER THAT IT REALLY WAS NONEXISTENT. SO ALL THESE INCONSISTENCIES, THOSE WERE ALL APPARENT. AT SOME POINT AFTER WE HAD FILED OUR FEDERAL HABEAS CORPUS ACTION, ONE OF THE LAWYERS FOR THE GOVERNMENT CONTACTED DENNIS AND SAID, HEY, WOULD YOU BE WILLING TO SETTLE THIS CASE? THEY CAME BACK MULTIPLE TIMES WHEN MY ATTORNEY TOLD ME THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS OFFERING PLEA DEALS, PLEAD GUILTY, GO HOME WITHIN 24 HOURS. BUT YOU PLEAD GUILTY TO TERRORISM. AND I’M LIKE, NO, I’M NOT TAKING NOTHING. AND THAT WAS A REAL TELL THAT THE GOVERNMENT KNEW THAT THE CLAIMS WE WERE MAKING HAD A LOT OF MERIT, BECAUSE THERE IS NO WAY THE GOVERNMENT WOULD EVER PROPOSE SUCH A THING IF THEY THOUGHT THAT THEY HAD A TRUE TERRORIST ON THEIR HANDS. YOU KNOW, I SHOWED IT TO SOMEBODY IN PRISON AT THE TIME, YOU KNOW, AND HE’S LIKE, ARE YOU CRAZY? YOU’D BE FREE. GO HOME. I’M LIKE, FREE. BUT THE LABEL THAT I’M GOING TO HAVE ON ME FOR SOMETHING, I DIDN’T DO THAT MEANT WAITING NOT ONLY FOR A YEAR AND A HALF TO HAVE THE NEW TRIAL MOTION DECIDED, BUT ANOTHER FOUR AND A HALF TO FIVE YEARS TO HAVE THE APPEAL DECIDED, WHICH IS AN EXTRAORDINARILY LONG TIME FOR AN APPEAL TO TO LAST. BUT I DIDN’T DO IT. SO THINK ABOUT IT. WELL, YOU HAVE FREEDOM. I’M LIKE, BRO, I’D RATHER STAY. DO MY WHOLE SENTENCE AND WALK OUT, THEN PLEAD GUILTY TO SOMETHING. THINK I’D HAVE IT MORE? THESE PICTURES DO BRING BACK A LOT OF MEMORIES. IT’S MY COUSIN I MET CAME VISIT ME. THAT WAS IN 2012. THIS ONE WAS IN TERRE HAUTE, INDIANA. WELL, I WENT IN THERE. I WAS, WHAT, 23 YEARS OLD, AND I CAME ACROSS A LOT OF PEOPLE WHO HAD EXPERIENCED, LIKE IN LIFE AND IN DOING TIME IN PRISON. SO, YOU KNOW, JUST BEING AROUND THEM KIND OF HELPED ME DEVELOP. AND LIKE, I BECAME MORE MATURE IN PRISON. 2026 MAY 2ND. MAY 2ND, 2026. YES. WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO ON THAT DAY? I DON’T KNOW. I DON’T KNOW, HONESTLY. THAT WAS MY FULL RELEASE DATE. LIKE, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? JUST LIKE, HONESTLY, LIKE I SAID, IT WAS JUST LIKE, OKAY, UNTIL THIS DAY, I DO THINK ABOUT THAT DATE, HONESTLY. LIKE, OKAY, WHAT IF THINGS DIDN’T WORK OUT? I JUST HAD TO LOOK FORWARD TO THAT DAY. HAMID WOULDN’T HAVE BEEN BLAMED OR JUDGED BY ANYBODY FOR SAYING, YOU KNOW WHAT, MATERIAL SUPPORT FOR TERRORISM. THAT’S A HEAVY, HEAVY CHARGE. YOU KNOW, HOW AM I EVER GOING TO GET OUT FROM UNDER THAT? JUST, YOU KNOW, PERSONALLY, REPUTATIONALLY AND IF I CAN AGREE TO SOME LESSER TERROR STILL TERROR RELATED THING AND GET OUT A LOT EARLIER, I CAN HAVE A LIFE. I DON’T THINK ANYBODY IN HIS CASE WAS EVER COUNTING ON. PEOPLE WORKING FOR HIM. THE WAY DENNIS AND THE TEAM THAT DENNIS PUT TOGETHER, OF WHICH I AM A MEMBER, DID. IT WAS JULY 29TH, 2019, IF I’M NOT MISTAKEN. YES, I REMEMBER, YEAH, I WAS JUST WATCHING TV SPORTS. MY UNIT MANAGER CAME IN, CALLED MY NAME HIGH. I’M LIKE, YES MA’AM IN THE OFFICE. I’M LIKE, IN MY CASE MANAGER OFFICE, MY CASE MANAGER WAS NOT THERE. I’M LIKE, I DID CLEAN THE OFFICE THIS MORNING, SO I DON’T KNOW IF SHE WANTS ME TO CLEAN AGAIN. SO I’M LIKE, OKAY, I’LL GO IN THERE. AND SHE’S LIKE, YOUR ATTORNEY’S GONNA CALL RIGHT NOW. YOU HAVE SOME GOOD NEWS. MY HEART DROPPED TO THE FLOOR. I FROZE FOR A MINUTE. I I’M LIKE, NO, IT CAN’T BE. IT CAN’T BE. HE CAN’T BE. WHAT I’M THINKING AS SOON AS MY ATTORNEY CALLS, I PICK UP THE PHONE. SHE GOES, PICK IT UP. AND THEN IT’S LIKE, HAMID. I’M LIKE, YES, WE WON. AND THAT WAS IT. I STARTED SHAKING, CRYING LIKE THE THE FEELING KICKED IN LIKE, NO, THIS IS NOT THIS IS NOT TRUE. LIKE IT WAS SO UNREAL. SORRY. IT WAS AN UNREAL FEELING. HONESTLY, I JUST REMEMBER CRYING. YEAH. STILL EMOTIONAL TODAY ABOUT IT. I’M SURPRISED, TO BE HONEST WITH YOU. YEAH, BUT. YES. WHY? BECAUSE HAMID’S LIKE A PART OF MY FAMILY NOW, YOU KNOW, MY MY HEART, FAMILY. AND I’M SO PROUD OF HIM. I WALKED OUT OF THERE AND I’M HOLDING THE WALL, WALKING LIKE. AND I COULDN’T WALK. AND I WENT TO A FRIEND OF MINE WHO I’M REALLY CLOSE TO IN THERE, AND I WENT SIT DOWN AND SHARE. I’M CRYING. HE’S LIKE, ARE YOU GOOD? WHAT’S GOING ON? YOUR FAMILY GOOD. WHAT? AND I SAID, I WON. MY APPEAL CAME BACK IN MY FAVOR. MY PETITION, THE COURT RULED MY FAVOR. WE HUGGED EACH OTHER, STARTED CRYING, AND I WENT BACK TO MY CELL AND I TOLD MY CELLMATE ABOUT IT. AND HE WAS HAPPY. AND HE’S LIKE, MAN, GET READY. I’M LIKE, BRO, GET READY. I DON’T EVEN KNOW, MAN. I DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT. I’M SO USED TO BEING IN HERE. LIKE, DOESN’T FEEL RIGHT. GOING HOME RIGHT NOW. SO, YOU KNOW, HIS PARENTS HAD NO IDEA. SO WE WE TALKED WITH SOME OF HIS FAMILY MEMBERS WERE LIKE, HEY, HE’S GETTING OUT. WE’RE GOING TO GET HIM HERE. WE DON’T WANT YOUR PARENTS TO KNOW. WE WANT TO MAKE IT A SURPRISE. AND THEN SOMEONE TOOK HIM FROM ARIZONA TO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA AND THEN FROM SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA, BROUGHT HIM DOWNTOWN SACRAMENTO. TEHAMA DEL MAR. NO, NO, NO. NO, NO. TEHAMA. YOU. NO. HEY, EVERYBODY START CRYING. I TOLD MY MOM I’M LIKE, HEY, YOUR PRAYERS BEEN ACCEPTED. I’M AT HOME NOW. AND I WAS JUST. IT WAS. THE FEELING WAS SO GOOD. LIKE IT WAS UNREAL. I HAD TO SING WITH MY WIFE. I USED TO SAY TO HER, THERE WILL BE A DAY. THAT PEOPLE WILL FIND OUT THIS CASE WAS BOGUS, THAT HE DIDN’T GO TO A CAMP, THAT HE WASN’T A TERRORIST. THERE WILL BE A DAY. AND MY WIFE, WE WERE IN A NICE RESTAURANT IN PALM SPRINGS, AND WE WERE SITTING DOWN AND ALL OF A SUDDEN MY I COULD FEEL MY CELL PHONE GO OFF AND I WAS GETTING A TEXT. AND SO I LOOKED AT HER AND I SAID. SORRY. IT’S EMOTIONAL. THIS IS A HARD CASE. I SAID, TODAY’S THE DAY. I’M STILL IN SHOCK. I CAN’T BELIEVE THIS DAY CAME. I STILL THINK THIS IS A DREAM. I WAKE UP AND I’M STILL THINKING I’LL BE IN PRISON. HAMID HAYAT SERVED NEARLY 14 YEARS IN A FEDERAL PRISON IN ARIZONA, CONVICTED OF TRAINING IN A PAKISTANI TERRORIST CAMP AND LYING TO THE FBI ABOUT IT. BUT HAYAT NEVER ATTENDED THE CAMP. AND IT WAS THE GOVERNMENT THAT LIED. ACCORDING TO HAYAT’S LEGAL TEAM. THEY SAID, YOU KNOW, YOU’VE TOLD US TIME AND TIME AGAIN YOU DON’T GO TO A CAMP. BUT WHAT ABOUT THE PICTURES WE HAVE OF YOU IN A CAMP? AND THOSE PICTURES WERE FALSE. NEVER. NO, THEY DIDN’T EXIST. THEY ADMITTED THEY EXIST. I’M LOST FOR WORDS. I DIDN’T WANT TO HAVE TO SAY. I’D LIKE TO THANK EVERYONE. MY LEGAL TEAM. I, MY SUPPORTERS, MY BROTHERS AND SISTERS. ANONYMOUSLY. SUPPORTERS, EVERYBODY. THIS DAY WAS NOT POSSIBLE WITHOUT YOU GUYS. THROUGH ALL OF THIS, HIS FAITH SUSTAINED HIM. AND I HAVE TO SAY, IF THIS EXPERIENCE PROVED ANYTHING INTO THE WORLD. OMID HAYAT IS A MAN OF PEACE. OH, I MEAN, DENNIS WAS THE DRIVING FORCE IN THIS CASE FROM THE GET GO. I MEAN, HE AND I BOTH WERE VERY EAGER TO WORK ON IT. HE KNEW HOW WEAK THE EVIDENCE WAS. I SPOKE TO DENNIS AND I TOLD HIM, HEY, THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I WAS CRYING, HE WAS REALLY HAPPY. ON THE OTHER SIDE. I SAID, THANK YOU FOR ALL THOSE YEARS YOU FOUGHT FOR MY FREEDOM. I’M OUT NOW AND IT’S BECAUSE OF YOUR HARD WORK. SORRY. I REALLY MISS THEM. HONESTLY. I DON’T THINK I WOULD BE A FREE MAN IF HE WAS NOT MY APPEAL ATTORNEY TILL THIS DAY. I THINK IF HE DIDN’T TAKE MY CASE, I THINK I’D STILL BE IN PRISON. THE WORK THEY PUT IN HONESTLY, I AM, I’M I DON’T KNOW HOW TO THANK THEM LIKE IT’S. I THINK THE WORDS ARE NOT ENOUGH FOR ME TO JUST THANK THEM. I DON’T KNOW HOW CAN I PAY THEM BACK FOR WHAT THEY DID FOR 14 YEARS, FIGHTING FOR MY FREEDOM. YOU KNOW I’M FREE. THE BIGGEST BLESSING IS JUST BE BACK WITH MY FAMILY AND MY PARENTS. MY SIBLINGS, MY COUSINS. THEY HAPPEN. ZINDAGI THEM AMONG THE TULARE LA RIVIERA. NOT THE SAME. IT MENTALLY DESTROYED THEM. HONESTLY, I DESTROYED MY PARENTS MENTALLY. LIKE. AS I SAID, THE FIERCELY FOUGHT FOR ME, BUT IT REALLY DESTROYED HIM AT THE SAME TIME. I MEAN THEY WERE HAPPY TO SEE ME COME HOME AND. BUT IT JUST IT REALLY TOOK A TOLL ON THEM. HI THERE. I’M LOOKING FOR NASEEM. IS HE HERE AT ALL? HE’S AT WORK. MY NAME IS JASON MARKS AND I’M A REPORTER DOWN IN SACRAMENTO. IS THERE A WAY THAT I CAN JUST GET IN TOUCH WITH HIM? I FORGIVE HIM, HONESTLY. I JUST LEAVE IT UP TO GOD TO DEAL WITH HIM. I DON’T I’M NOT HOLDING NO GRUDGES, NO ILL FEELINGS TOWARDS NOBODY. HONESTLY. IT’S NOT GOING TO DO ME NO GOOD. BUT I’M A PERSON WHO FORGIVES. HOW FAR IS LODI FROM STOCKTON? 10 TO 15 MINUTE DRIVE. NOT BAD AT ALL. YES. IT’S JUST. BUT IT SOUNDS LIKE IN YOUR MIND IT’S AN OCEAN AWAY. IT IS? ABSOLUTELY. YEAH. CAN I SAY. DO YOU GUYS WANT TO TAKE A DRIVE DOWN THERE? JUST PASS BY MY HOUSE. WHICH HOUSE? OLD HOUSE IN LODI. I CAN DO THAT. BUT I’M NOT GOING TO GET OUT OF THE CAR. WHY IS IT SO MENTALLY DIFFICULT TO TO GO TO A PLACE THAT THAT YOU ONCE CALLED HOME? JUST BECAUSE OF WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH? HONESTLY, JUST LIKE IT’S JUST LIKE THE FLASHBACKS I GET FROM THE PAST, EVENTS THAT HAPPENED WITH ME. THIS IS MY HOUSE RIGHT HERE. AND WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU WERE ACTUALLY IN THE HOUSE? 2005. I FEEL LIKE IT’S SO HARD TO COME TO LODI. AND THEN WHEN I’M ABOUT TO LEAVE, I JUST CAN’T WAIT. LIKE, JUST LET ME JUST GET OUT OF HERE. LIKE, THE FEELING IS. YEAH. SOUNDS LIKE YOU’RE STILL TRYING TO FIND YOUR FOOTING EVEN FIVE YEARS LATER. YES, HONESTLY, I AM. YOU SAID IT PERFECTLY RIGHT THERE. YEAH. I DON’T KNOW WHAT DIRECTION I’M GOING TO GO INTO. LIKE, I DON’T HAVE NO GOAL SETS OR NOTHING. I HAVE NOTHING, LIKE, PLANNED, LIKE ANY. YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN? UNFORTUNATELY, HAVING YOUR CONVICTION VACATED IS NOT THE LEGAL EQUIVALENT OF AN EXONERATION. IN THIS CASE, HIS CONVICTION WAS VACATED BECAUSE THEY FOUND THAT THERE WERE CONSTITUTIONAL DEFECTS IN THE TRIAL AND THE PROCESS THAT HE WAS GIVEN. SO THERE WASN’T A KIND OF LEGAL FINDING OF INNOCENCE, RIGHT? WE CONTEND THAT THAT IS, YOU KNOW, KIND OF ESSENTIALLY AN EXONERATION. BUT FOR THE PURPOSES OF YOUR QUESTION, THAT DOESN’T AMOUNT TO AN EXONERATION IN THE SENSE IN WHICH YOU CAN SAY, YOU KNOW WHAT, YOU GOT THE WRONG GUY. YOU ROBBED HIM OF X NUMBER OF YEARS OF HIS LIFE, AND HE DESERVES TO BE COMPENSATED. IS THERE ANY DOUBT IN MY MIND THAT THAT’S EXACTLY WHAT HAPPENED? AND THAT THAT IS EXACTLY WHAT HAMID DESERVES? NO. UNFORTUNATELY, THE LAW, AS WE UNDERSTAND IT, DOESN’T PROVIDE FOR THAT. YOU KNOW, WHEN I THINK ABOUT THE FACT THAT HE SPENT 14 YEARS IN A FEDERAL PENITENTIARY, OFTEN AMONG TRUE TERRORISTS, AND THAT’S SOMETHING THAT NO ONE CAN EVER GIVE BACK TO HAMID HAYAT. NO ONE CAN EVER GIVE BACK TO HIM. THOSE 14 YEARS. YOU KNOW, WE LEARNED A LOT FROM NINE OVER 11. BUT ONE OF THE THINGS THAT WE LEARNED WAS THAT THE RESPONSE, YOU KNOW, WAS LED TO SOME TRAGIC OUTCOMES. THE FEAR. WE ALL REMEMBER WAS SO GREAT AFTER THE ATTACKS THAT PEOPLE DIDN’T WANT IT TO HAPPEN AGAIN. AND PEOPLE EXPECTED THE GOVERNMENT TO PROTECT THEM. AND THE GOVERNMENT WENT OUT AND IT AND IT TREATED THE MUSLIM COMMUNITY LIKE IT ESSENTIALLY TREATED THE MAFIA. WHEN I REPRESENTED HAMID AT TRIAL, THE POLITICAL CLIMATE WAS VERY, VERY DIFFERENT. THE WITNESSES WHO CAME FORWARD 12 YEARS AFTER HIS CONVICTION WOULD HAVE NEVER TESTIFIED AT HIS TRIAL. I HAVE ALWAYS BELIEVED IN HAMID’S INNOCENCE, AND I AM HAPPY THAT HE IS NO LONGER IN PRISON. AT THE END OF THE DAY, I FELL ON MY SWORD FOR HAMID SO HE CAN ENJOY THE FREEDOM THAT HE DESERVES. THANK YOU FOR YOUR PATIENCE, LADIES. GENTLEMEN, WE’RE NOW REALLY EXCITED. LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS TRIP. I WAS PLANNING ON THIS FOR A LONG TIME. THE FEELINGS ARE UNREAL. LIKE, JUST SO EXCITED. LOOKING FORWARD TO GOING TO PLACES THAT I WANT TO GO. THIS WAS SOMETHING I PLANNED ON WHEN I GOT OUT ACTUALLY, LIKE I WAS PLANNING ON BEFORE I WAS IN PRISON. BUT WHEN I GOT OUT, I TOLD MY ATTORNEY, MY ATTORNEY AT THE TIME, I’M LIKE, HEY. HEY, DENNIS. I’M GOING TO GO TO NEW YORK VACATION. AND HE’S LIKE, OKAY, WE’RE GOING TO MAKE THAT HAPPEN. WHEN? THIS WAS THE FIRST TIME THAT I HAD TO GO THROUGH SECONDARY SCREENING LIKE THREE TIMES. I MEAN, AS A TSA AGENT TOLD ME, HEY, YOU’RE CLEAR. WE DON’T NEED YOU BACK DOWN HERE. BUT THE AIRLINE, I DON’T KNOW WHAT HAPPENED, BUT I’M USED TO IT, HONESTLY. IS IT DEMORALIZING? WHAT’S THE THOUGHT? WHAT’S THE FEELING? I DON’T EVEN KNOW HOW TO DESCRIBE IT, BUT IT’S JUST LIKE. I’M LIKE. IT IS WHAT IT IS. I’M JUST. I’M OVER IT. LIKE, I’M JUST GLAD I CAN FLY. IT’S A HASSLE. BUT YOU GUYS WITNESSED IT. BUT FOR ME, IT’S LIKE A I’LL SAY ANOTHER DAY, A REGULAR DAY. YEAH. YOU DON’T THINK ABOUT THAT STUFF. IT’S A DREAM COME TRUE. LIKE I SAID, THIS IS ON MY BUCKET LIST. I’M JUST LOOKING AT IT. I CAN’T BELIEVE IT. PLEASE HOLD HANDRAILS WHENEVER POSSIBLE, PARTICULARLY ON STAIRWAY. AMAZING. I’M. I’M LOST FOR WORDS. ATTENTION, PLEASE. WE ARE NOW APPROACHING A DOCKSIDE LANDING. ITS UNREAL. MAN. LIKE I COULDN’T EVEN IMAGINE FOUR YEARS AGO GETTING OUT. LIKE I’M GONNA, YOU KNOW. DO SOMETHING LIKE THIS. TRYING TO HUMP YOU. SEE OVER THERE, STATEN ISLAND. SO THAT’S ONE OF THE FIVE BOROUGHS IN NEW YORK CITY. I MEAN, I JUST HOPE MY STORY WILL MAKE A DIFFERENCE NOW AND DON’T WANT THIS TO HAPPEN TO ANYBODY. THAT’S THE MAIN GOAL. I DON’T WANT THIS TO HAPPEN TO ANYBODY. NOBODY SHOULD GO THROUGH WHAT I’VE BEEN THROUGH. NOBODY, HE HAD A LIFE AHEAD OF HIM THAT IS NOW FOREVER CHANGED. NOBODY WHO HAD A HAND IN THAT HAS SAID. SORRY, THIS FIGHT WAS FOR EVERYONE. HE HE FOUGHT FOR EVERYONE. I HOPE HE INSPIRES OTHERS TO KEEP FIGHTING AS WELL. IF YOU ARE INNOCENT, YOU JUST FIGHT. YOU FIGHT. DON’T GIVE UP. DON’T GIVE UP ON YOUR FEET, ON OH MY GOD. OH, THIS IS UNREAL BRO. THIS. WHERE DOES ALL THE EMOTION COME FROM? FREEDOM MEANS SO MUCH. I. IT’S UNREAL. LIKE LOOKING AT THE SYMBOLS AND EVERYTHING. THE MEANINGS, THE WORDS AND EVERYTHING IS JUST SO DEEP. UNREAL. HONESTLY. I’M SORRY, I’M SORRY. I’M JUST GETTING EMOTIONAL.
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    Updated: 6:59 PM PDT May 22, 2025
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    Fighting for Freedom documentary: Hamid Hayat reflects on case that led to wrongful conviction, 14 years in prison

    Twenty years ago, a Lodi man falsely confessed to terrorism. Hamid Hayat speaks for the first time in a television interview about the fight to reclaim his life.

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    Updated: 6:59 PM PDT May 22, 2025
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    Hamid Hayat is emotional as he drives through Lodi. Even though he grew up there, he avoids spending time in the city near Stockton as much as possible. “We grew up playing there with my cousins, with my neighbors. So many memories,” says Hayat, 42. “We used to play cricket. We used to play flag football.” He stops at a cemetery and walks through the rows of headstones. He kneels and bursts into tears. “This is my granddad,” he says. “He died in 2006.” He says his grandmother was also buried there after she passed away in 2009. It still pains Hayat that he wasn’t able to make her funeral. More than 10 years would pass before he was released from prison. The Informant In 2002, Hayat was 19 years old when he met a new friend at the mosque he attended in Lodi. Naseem Khan was about 10 years older than Hayat and he started spending a lot of time with the Hayat family. “We became friends,” Hayat said. “I looked up to him as a brother, older brother, you know.” Hayat lived in his family’s garage at the time and spent most of his days playing video games. He had started working as a cherry packer at a nearby warehouse to earn some money. “Hamid, at the time, he was kind of a slacker. That’s how his family described him,” says Demian Bulwa, director of news at The San Francisco Chronicle. Bulwa was a reporter at the time and closely tracked Hayat’s case for years following his arrest. Bulwa said there was a lot of talk that Hayat would stretch stories and it was hard to believe what he said. “This was a dangerous combination when he met Naseem Khan,” Bulwa said.“I was just playing it off and I was just lying to him,” Hayat tells KCRA 3 now, during an interview at his home in Stockton. “I was just like, impressing him in other words.” The Department of Justice would go on to use recorded conversations between Hayat and Khan as one of their main pieces of evidence against Hayat, accused of providing material support or resources to terrorists. Court documents show Khan recorded seven conversations with Hayat between August 2002 and October 2003. In the recorded conversations, Hayat and Khan talk about everything from their love lives to cricket and movies. The conversations also grow serious - Hayat claims he has knowledge of jihadi camps and that he plans to go to training. Some of the most serious comments include Hayat’s reaction to the murder of Daniel Pearl. Hayat praised the actions of Islamic militants who kidnapped and murdered the Jewish-American journalist. Hayat says it’s those comments that he regrets the most, and he thinks about them often.“I was not open-minded at the time, honestly,” he says. “I was not open-minded when I said that. I learned more about being open-minded when I went to prison, being around other religions and other races. I did really regret that.” It was later revealed that FBI agents had come across Khan while he was working in Bend, Oregon, at a convenience store. They interviewed the 28-year-old in October 2001, in connection with a separate investigation. That’s when Khan claimed to have knowledge of terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command, appearing at a mosque in Lodi years earlier. Although evidence of that never came to light, the agents hired Khan as a confidential informant. Khan's task? To gather information about a suspected terrorist cell in Lodi. The Interrogation The recorded conversations weren’t the only piece of evidence used by the federal government during Hayat’s trial. They said they also had video showing Hayat confessing at an FBI office. Hayat tells us he remembers the day he first spoke to agents, after his flight was diverted on his way home from Pakistan on May 30, 2005. Officials said they questioned him because he showed up on the federal government’s “No Fly” list, as a result of information provided by Khan. Four days later, on June 3, FBI agents showed up at Hayat’s home in Lodi, where he again denied attending a training camp. According to court documents, he stated that “he would never be involved with anything related to terrorism, and didn’t know why anybody would say otherwise.” The next day, agents asked him to go to the FBI office in Sacramento. He tells KCRA 3 he agreed to go, without a lawyer, because he didn’t have anything to hide. Hayat says the next 16 hours are still a blur. Having just traveled back from Pakistan, he says he was exhausted and could barely stay awake while agents questioned him in four sessions. Court documents show that during the first two sessions, which were not recorded, he denied having attended a training camp. But in the third and fourth sessions, which were recorded, he eventually admitted to attending a camp. "I think they did a polygraph test on me, and they were saying I failed the test. They said, ‘you did go to a camp’ and I said 'no, I didn’t.' I kept denying, denying, denying. Then I’m like OK, I just said what they wanted to hear. 'Okay, I did it,'" says Hayat. "When they were at my house, they were nice, polite, respectful and everything. But when we got to the FBI office ... they were totally different, like monsters."Hayat's exhaustion worked against him. "I told them, 'Yes, I attended a terrorist camp.' ... I just gave them what they wanted. I was like, 'Can I go home now? Can I go to sleep?'" he recalls. Hayat said when the agents told him he was going to jail he was too tired to comprehend and asked them if he could at least find a place to sleep in the jail. During the video, he yawns several times and agents eventually get him a blanket to wrap around his shoulders. Bulwa recalls reading transcripts of the interrogation and the recorded conversations while he covered Hayat’s trial. He says some moments stuck out to him as being shocking. “It’s clear he didn’t understand that this was a massive national terror investigation interrogation going on in this room,” says Bulwa. “Hamid had already begun to confess to the FBI and during a break, he’s in a break room with one of the interrogators, and he invites the guy to his wedding reception. He thinks he’s being really helpful and they’re going to be buds."| READ MORE | Who is Hamid Hayat? The story of a Lodi man who falsely confessed to terrorismFormer FBI agent James Wedick also found the tapes shocking. He was asked by Hayat’s defense team to watch the interrogations. He had been with the bureau for 35 years before becoming a private investigator. Hayat’s defense team thought he would have an important perspective about the techniques used by the agents. “I think I used the words, they were the sorriest interrogation tapes I’d ever seen,” says Wedick. “One of the issues was that he attended a terrorism camp, but yet on tape, I think he described eight or nine locations around the world.” In the tapes, you can hear Hayat describe the camps as being in a location with mountains, a “zigzag road” with fields and trees. He tells agents he never received specific information about targets he was supposed to find in the United States, but he thought they wanted him to focus on “finance buildings” and “food stores.” “I knew that when this case was re-examined, just like when I re-examined the tapes, if you look at the tapes today, you see how ridiculous they are,” says Wedick. The Conviction Hayat’s Sacramento trial made national headlines from February through April 2006. Former KCRA 3 reporter David Bienick, who is now a reporter at WCVB in Boston, recalls covering the trial daily, even all these years later. “This was the proverbial bombshell that went off in Northern California. People were afraid and everyone was talking about it. It led the newscast on KCRA for days, if not weeks,” says Bienick. “National media descended upon Lodi and upon Sacramento to try to find out more about this supposed sleeper cell that was going on ... and what exactly this young man, barely 20 years old, had been planning to do?” After a lengthy trial in which the jury was presented with the interrogation, including Hayat’s confession, along with testimony from the informant Khan, the federal jury found Hayat guilty on charges of providing material support or resources to terrorists and making false statements to the FBI. On September 10, 2007, Hayat was sentenced to 24 years in prison by Chief Judge Garland Burrell, Jr. It was Hayat's 25th birthday.Hayat says that while his time in prison was tough, he also formed close bonds with fellow prisoners over the years and became more open-minded to other religions. He grows emotional talking about those he met who were also incarcerated. He says to pass the time, he exercised, watched SportsCenter on ESPN, and read mystery novels–mostly authored by James Patterson and Michael Connelly. He says the hardest moments of all were in 2013 when his appeal was denied after a four-year process. “That was one of the lowest points for me ...I’m like OK, now what? ... My release date is May 2, 2026. I’m looking at that, I’m just looking at that date, I’m not thinking about anything else ...I have 13 more years left,” Hayat recalls.That’s when his lawyer, Dennis Riordan, called him with an update. His new legal team was getting ready to apply for habeas corpus, a process that involves claiming someone has been unlawfully detained. Hayat says Riordan warned him this was the last chance they had. Timeline: What led to Hamid Hayat's wrongful conviction and his eventual freedomThe Rookie Lawyer Also on Hayat’s new legal team were Don Horgan and Layli Shirani. Speaking to KCRA 3 Investigates, they both said they were shocked by the details of his original trial and felt it was their duty to help him. Horgan says his concerns only grew when he first met with Hayat’s original attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi. She was an immigration lawyer at the time who had never tried a criminal case. “What shocked us was that there had been available alibi witnesses in Pakistan who could have testified for Hamid, who were never contacted, and that the defense team had instead decided they wanted to push the case to trial as quickly as possible,” said Horgan. He says she was unaware at the time of a federal rule allowing lawyers to get video depositions of foreign witnesses if they can’t come to the United States. Shirani says another issue was Mojaddidi’s decision not to apply to be approved under the Classified Information Procedures Act. “The defense declined that, and they forfeited access to all, basically, of the government’s so-called evidence, which I think we would have been able to discover that it really was nonexistent,” Shirani said.Horgan says they also learned during the investigation that Hayat had contracted meningitis in the year 2000 when he was living in Pakistan. He immediately returned to the United States with his family and received treatment. “There was testimony, and the record came out during the evidentiary hearing that it really affected him mentally, significantly,” says Horgan. “It would have been very relevant for a confession expert to testify, ‘that can significantly alter a person’s ability to understand questions and respond truthfully.’” Freedom After 14 Years Hayat recalls a call he got while in jail. It was July 2019, and he picked up the phone.“Dennis is like, ‘Hamid, we won.’ And that was it. I started shaking, crying, like the feeling kicked in like no, this is not true,” Hayat recalls.A judge had ruled that Hayat’s conviction should be vacated, saying his attorney failed to present six alibi witnesses during his original trial. The judge ruled that the jury was required to reach a unanimous verdict on each count, and the outcome could have differed if one juror had struck a different balance. Six months after that, federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss Hayat’s case. He was finally free. Hayat returned home to live with his parents and spent time with his siblings. Yet he’s still finding his footing as he returns to society. “Unfortunately, having your conviction vacated is not the legal equivalent of an exoneration. In this case, his conviction was vacated because they found there were constitutional defects in the trial and the process that he was given,” says Shirani. She says that means there wasn’t a legal finding of innocence, and the government will not compensate Hayat for the years he spent in prison. “Is there any doubt in my mind that that’s exactly what happened and that is exactly what Hamid deserves? No,” Shirani says.Paying the Price It wasn’t only Hayat who struggled with his time behind bars. He says his family was also traumatized by the trial and the following years. "They fearlessly fought for me, but it really destroyed them at the same time,” says Hayat. “They were happy to see me come home but it really took a toll on them.” Khan, the FBI informant, also struggles emotionally as he looks back on those years. KCRA 3 Investigates knocked on the door of his home in Oregon, but he wasn’t available for an interview. He later sent us a text message, saying in part: “...it is a part of my past that I do not ever wish to visit or repeat EVER again. There are no words that I can use to say how sorry and sad I am about those dark days of my life and what happened to Hamid.” In the text, he goes on to ask for forgiveness from Hayat and his family. KCRA 3 Investigates also reached out to Mojaddidi, Hayat’s original trial attorney. She agreed to an interview but later canceled, instead sending us a recorded audio statement. In the statement, which you can listen to below, she says she relied heavily on the seasoned attorney who represented Hayat’s father. She maintains she did not provide Hayat with ineffective assistance. | VIDEO BELOW | In an audio recording, Mojaddidi addresses her time defending HayatHayat says he doesn’t harbor any anger against either Khan or Mojaddidi, and says that because of his religion, he believes this was all part of Allah’s plan. Now, years after his release, Hamid is still adjusting to life outside prison. As he looks to the future, his legal team set up a fundraiser to help him begin his next chapter. “I just hope my story will make a difference now,” says Hayat. “I don’t want this to happen to anybody, that’s the main goal ... Nobody should go through this, nobody.”See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel

    Hamid Hayat is emotional as he drives through Lodi. Even though he grew up there, he avoids spending time in the city near Stockton as much as possible.

    “We grew up playing there with my cousins, with my neighbors. So many memories,” says Hayat, 42. “We used to play cricket. We used to play flag football.”

    Advertisement
    hamid hayat driving through lodi
    Hearst Owned
    Hamid driving through Lodi

    He stops at a cemetery and walks through the rows of headstones. He kneels and bursts into tears.

    “This is my granddad,” he says. “He died in 2006.” He says his grandmother was also buried there after she passed away in 2009. It still pains Hayat that he wasn’t able to make her funeral. More than 10 years would pass before he was released from prison.

    hamid visits the gravesite of his grandfather in lodi 
    Hearst Owned
    Hamid visits the gravesite of his grandfather in Lodi 

    The Informant

    In 2002, Hayat was 19 years old when he met a new friend at the mosque he attended in Lodi. Naseem Khan was about 10 years older than Hayat and he started spending a lot of time with the Hayat family.

    “We became friends,” Hayat said. “I looked up to him as a brother, older brother, you know.”

    Hayat lived in his family’s garage at the time and spent most of his days playing video games. He had started working as a cherry packer at a nearby warehouse to earn some money.

    “Hamid, at the time, he was kind of a slacker. That’s how his family described him,” says Demian Bulwa, director of news at The San Francisco Chronicle.

    Bulwa was a reporter at the time and closely tracked Hayat’s case for years following his arrest. Bulwa said there was a lot of talk that Hayat would stretch stories and it was hard to believe what he said.

    “This was a dangerous combination when he met Naseem Khan,” Bulwa said.

    “I was just playing it off and I was just lying to him,” Hayat tells KCRA 3 now, during an interview at his home in Stockton. “I was just like, impressing him in other words.”

    The Department of Justice would go on to use recorded conversations between Hayat and Khan as one of their main pieces of evidence against Hayat, accused of providing material support or resources to terrorists.

    Court documents show Khan recorded seven conversations with Hayat between August 2002 and October 2003. In the recorded conversations, Hayat and Khan talk about everything from their love lives to cricket and movies. The conversations also grow serious - Hayat claims he has knowledge of jihadi camps and that he plans to go to training.

    Some of the most serious comments include Hayat’s reaction to the murder of Daniel Pearl. Hayat praised the actions of Islamic militants who kidnapped and murdered the Jewish-American journalist.

    Hayat says it’s those comments that he regrets the most, and he thinks about them often.

    “I was not open-minded at the time, honestly,” he says. “I was not open-minded when I said that. I learned more about being open-minded when I went to prison, being around other religions and other races. I did really regret that.”

    It was later revealed that FBI agents had come across Khan while he was working in Bend, Oregon, at a convenience store. They interviewed the 28-year-old in October 2001, in connection with a separate investigation. That’s when Khan claimed to have knowledge of terrorist Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden’s second-in-command, appearing at a mosque in Lodi years earlier. Although evidence of that never came to light, the agents hired Khan as a confidential informant.

    the convenience store in bend, oregon where naseem khan worked when fbi found him
    Hearst Owned
    The convenience store in Bend, Oregon where Naseem Khan worked when FBI found him. (The store’s name has since changed from that time)

    Khan's task? To gather information about a suspected terrorist cell in Lodi.

    The Interrogation

    The recorded conversations weren’t the only piece of evidence used by the federal government during Hayat’s trial. They said they also had video showing Hayat confessing at an FBI office.

    Hayat tells us he remembers the day he first spoke to agents, after his flight was diverted on his way home from Pakistan on May 30, 2005.

    Officials said they questioned him because he showed up on the federal government’s “No Fly” list, as a result of information provided by Khan.

    Four days later, on June 3, FBI agents showed up at Hayat’s home in Lodi, where he again denied attending a training camp.

    According to court documents, he stated that “he would never be involved with anything related to terrorism, and didn’t know why anybody would say otherwise.”

    The next day, agents asked him to go to the FBI office in Sacramento. He tells KCRA 3 he agreed to go, without a lawyer, because he didn’t have anything to hide.

    Hayat says the next 16 hours are still a blur. Having just traveled back from Pakistan, he says he was exhausted and could barely stay awake while agents questioned him in four sessions. Court documents show that during the first two sessions, which were not recorded, he denied having attended a training camp. But in the third and fourth sessions, which were recorded, he eventually admitted to attending a camp.

    "I think they did a polygraph test on me, and they were saying I failed the test. They said, ‘you did go to a camp’ and I said 'no, I didn’t.' I kept denying, denying, denying. Then I’m like OK, I just said what they wanted to hear. 'Okay, I did it,'" says Hayat. "When they were at my house, they were nice, polite, respectful and everything. But when we got to the FBI office ... they were totally different, like monsters."

    Hayat's exhaustion worked against him.

    "I told them, 'Yes, I attended a terrorist camp.' ... I just gave them what they wanted. I was like, 'Can I go home now? Can I go to sleep?'" he recalls.

    Hayat said when the agents told him he was going to jail he was too tired to comprehend and asked them if he could at least find a place to sleep in the jail. During the video, he yawns several times and agents eventually get him a blanket to wrap around his shoulders.

    Bulwa recalls reading transcripts of the interrogation and the recorded conversations while he covered Hayat’s trial. He says some moments stuck out to him as being shocking.

    “It’s clear he didn’t understand that this was a massive national terror investigation interrogation going on in this room,” says Bulwa. “Hamid had already begun to confess to the FBI and during a break, he’s in a break room with one of the interrogators, and he invites the guy to his wedding reception. He thinks he’s being really helpful and they’re going to be buds."

    | READ MORE | Who is Hamid Hayat? The story of a Lodi man who falsely confessed to terrorism

    Former FBI agent James Wedick also found the tapes shocking. He was asked by Hayat’s defense team to watch the interrogations. He had been with the bureau for 35 years before becoming a private investigator. Hayat’s defense team thought he would have an important perspective about the techniques used by the agents.

    “I think I used the words, they were the sorriest interrogation tapes I’d ever seen,” says Wedick. “One of the issues was that he attended a terrorism camp, but yet on tape, I think he described eight or nine locations around the world.”

    In the tapes, you can hear Hayat describe the camps as being in a location with mountains, a “zigzag road” with fields and trees. He tells agents he never received specific information about targets he was supposed to find in the United States, but he thought they wanted him to focus on “finance buildings” and “food stores.”

    “I knew that when this case was re-examined, just like when I re-examined the tapes, if you look at the tapes today, you see how ridiculous they are,” says Wedick.

    The Conviction

    Hayat’s Sacramento trial made national headlines from February through April 2006. Former KCRA 3 reporter David Bienick, who is now a reporter at WCVB in Boston, recalls covering the trial daily, even all these years later.

    “This was the proverbial bombshell that went off in Northern California. People were afraid and everyone was talking about it. It led the newscast on KCRA for days, if not weeks,” says Bienick. “National media descended upon Lodi and upon Sacramento to try to find out more about this supposed sleeper cell that was going on ... and what exactly this young man, barely 20 years old, had been planning to do?”

    After a lengthy trial in which the jury was presented with the interrogation, including Hayat’s confession, along with testimony from the informant Khan, the federal jury found Hayat guilty on charges of providing material support or resources to terrorists and making false statements to the FBI.

    On September 10, 2007, Hayat was sentenced to 24 years in prison by Chief Judge Garland Burrell, Jr. It was Hayat's 25th birthday.

    Hayat says that while his time in prison was tough, he also formed close bonds with fellow prisoners over the years and became more open-minded to other religions. He grows emotional talking about those he met who were also incarcerated. He says to pass the time, he exercised, watched SportsCenter on ESPN, and read mystery novels–mostly authored by James Patterson and Michael Connelly.

    He says the hardest moments of all were in 2013 when his appeal was denied after a four-year process.

    “That was one of the lowest points for me ...I’m like OK, now what? ... My release date is May 2, 2026. I’m looking at that, I’m just looking at that date, I’m not thinking about anything else ...I have 13 more years left,” Hayat recalls.

    That’s when his lawyer, Dennis Riordan, called him with an update. His new legal team was getting ready to apply for habeas corpus, a process that involves claiming someone has been unlawfully detained. Hayat says Riordan warned him this was the last chance they had.

    Timeline: What led to Hamid Hayat's wrongful conviction and his eventual freedom


    The Rookie Lawyer

    Also on Hayat’s new legal team were Don Horgan and Layli Shirani. Speaking to KCRA 3 Investigates, they both said they were shocked by the details of his original trial and felt it was their duty to help him.

    Horgan says his concerns only grew when he first met with Hayat’s original attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi. She was an immigration lawyer at the time who had never tried a criminal case.

    “What shocked us was that there had been available alibi witnesses in Pakistan who could have testified for Hamid, who were never contacted, and that the defense team had instead decided they wanted to push the case to trial as quickly as possible,” said Horgan. He says she was unaware at the time of a federal rule allowing lawyers to get video depositions of foreign witnesses if they can’t come to the United States.

    Shirani says another issue was Mojaddidi’s decision not to apply to be approved under the Classified Information Procedures Act.

    “The defense declined that, and they forfeited access to all, basically, of the government’s so-called evidence, which I think we would have been able to discover that it really was nonexistent,” Shirani said.

    Horgan says they also learned during the investigation that Hayat had contracted meningitis in the year 2000 when he was living in Pakistan. He immediately returned to the United States with his family and received treatment.

    “There was testimony, and the record came out during the evidentiary hearing that it really affected him mentally, significantly,” says Horgan. “It would have been very relevant for a confession expert to testify, ‘that can significantly alter a person’s ability to understand questions and respond truthfully.’”

    Freedom After 14 Years

    Hayat recalls a call he got while in jail. It was July 2019, and he picked up the phone.

    “Dennis is like, ‘Hamid, we won.’ And that was it. I started shaking, crying, like the feeling kicked in like no, this is not true,” Hayat recalls.

    A judge had ruled that Hayat’s conviction should be vacated, saying his attorney failed to present six alibi witnesses during his original trial. The judge ruled that the jury was required to reach a unanimous verdict on each count, and the outcome could have differed if one juror had struck a different balance.

    Six months after that, federal prosecutors filed a motion to dismiss Hayat’s case. He was finally free. Hayat returned home to live with his parents and spent time with his siblings. Yet he’s still finding his footing as he returns to society.

    hamid reunites with his mother after release
    CAIR
    Hamid reunites with his mother after release

    “Unfortunately, having your conviction vacated is not the legal equivalent of an exoneration. In this case, his conviction was vacated because they found there were constitutional defects in the trial and the process that he was given,” says Shirani.

    She says that means there wasn’t a legal finding of innocence, and the government will not compensate Hayat for the years he spent in prison.

    “Is there any doubt in my mind that that’s exactly what happened and that is exactly what Hamid deserves? No,” Shirani says.

    Paying the Price

    It wasn’t only Hayat who struggled with his time behind bars. He says his family was also traumatized by the trial and the following years.

    "They fearlessly fought for me, but it really destroyed them at the same time,” says Hayat. “They were happy to see me come home but it really took a toll on them.”

    Khan, the FBI informant, also struggles emotionally as he looks back on those years. KCRA 3 Investigates knocked on the door of his home in Oregon, but he wasn’t available for an interview. He later sent us a text message, saying in part: “...it is a part of my past that I do not ever wish to visit or repeat EVER again. There are no words that I can use to say how sorry and sad I am about those dark days of my life and what happened to Hamid.”

    In the text, he goes on to ask for forgiveness from Hayat and his family.

    KCRA 3 Investigates also reached out to Mojaddidi, Hayat’s original trial attorney. She agreed to an interview but later canceled, instead sending us a recorded audio statement. In the statement, which you can listen to below, she says she relied heavily on the seasoned attorney who represented Hayat’s father. She maintains she did not provide Hayat with ineffective assistance.

    | VIDEO BELOW | In an audio recording, Mojaddidi addresses her time defending Hayat

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      Hayat says he doesn’t harbor any anger against either Khan or Mojaddidi, and says that because of his religion, he believes this was all part of Allah’s plan.

      Now, years after his release, Hamid is still adjusting to life outside prison. As he looks to the future, his legal team set up a fundraiser to help him begin his next chapter.

      “I just hope my story will make a difference now,” says Hayat. “I don’t want this to happen to anybody, that’s the main goal ... Nobody should go through this, nobody.”

      See more coverage of top California stories here | Download our app | Subscribe to our morning newsletter | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel