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One of the nation’s highest profile post-9/11 terrorism cases fully unraveled Friday, with federal prosecutors saying they won’t pursue charges after a judge last year overturned the conviction of a man who had been linked to a purported al-Qaida sleeper cell in California and spent 14 years in prison. Hamid Hayat, a cherry picker from the community of Lodi in the Central Valley agricultural heartland, was freed in August after completing more than half his sentence on charges of providing material support to terrorists and lying to FBI agents. A federal judge in July overturned his 2006 conviction on charges...

In 2006, federal judge Garland E. Burrell sentenced Hamid Hayat of Lodi, California, to 24 years in prison for, as the U.S. Department of Justice explained, “a series of terrorism charges related to his 2003/2004 attendance at a jihadi training camp in Pakistan and his 2005 return to the United States with the intent to wage violent jihad.” As prosecutors charged, the man with “a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind” intended to target hospitals, banks and grocery stores. Hayat boasted about giving money to Sipah-e-Sahaba, a group that Pakistan declared a terrorist organization. The case was one the first...

A California teenager suspected of attending a terrorist training camp and his father are being denied re-entry to the United States after spending four years in Pakistan unless they submit to interviews and lie-detector tests, their attorney says.     Julia Mass says the rights of her clients, Muhammad Ismail, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, to return to the United States are being violated because they are on the "no fly" list.     Miss Mass said an official at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad told Jaber Ismail that he and his father would be allowed...

SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- A California man convicted of attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan was sentenced to 24 years in federal prison Monday for supporting terrorists, concluding a case that divided a Central Valley farming community. U.S. District Court Judge Garland Burrell Jr. imposed the sentence against Hamid Hayat on his 25th birthday, saying he had "attended a terrorist training camp, returned to the United States ready and willing to wage violent jihad when directed to do so." Hayat faced up to 39 years in prison after his April 2006 conviction on one count of providing material support to terrorists...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Shaky testimony and prejudice by the jury foreman should be enough to grant a new trial to a Lodi man convicted last year of terrorism-related charges, a defense lawyer argued Friday. Attorney Dennis Riordan told a federal judge that jury foreman Joseph Cote was biased against his client because he is Pakistani-American, a Muslim and was charged with terrorist activities. "We really have a question if we had 12 fair jurors," Riordan said during a hearing in U.S. District Court. "We know that one of them was not fair." Hamid Hayat's sentencing has been postponed while Judge...

LODI, Calif. - Eighteen months after FBI agents swarmed Lodi's Muslim community and arrested a father and son on terrorism-related charges, investigators said they are still examining several individuals named by the pair. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott and Drew Parenti, who heads the FBI's Sacramento office, met Friday with about 100 members of the Pakistani community at the Lodi Muslim Mosque. The site was part of a federal probe into what investigators initially said was a suspected terrorist cell in the agricultural community south of Sacramento. Hamid Hayat, 24, was convicted in April of one count of providing material support...

2 Lodi residents refused entry back into U.S. Demian Bulwa, Chronicle Staff Writer Saturday, August 26, 2006 Jaber Ismail, 18, (right) is seen with his younger brothe... * Printable Version * Email This Article (08-26) 04:00 PDT Sacramento -- The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo. Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged...

The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo. Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp. Federal authorities said Friday that the men,...

A federal judge on Monday rejected a request to dismiss some of the counts against a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists, leaving in place the possible maximum prison sentence of 39 years. Hamid Hayat, 23, was convicted in April of one count of providing material support to terrorists by attending an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan and three counts of lying about it to FBI agents. His attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, argued that federal prosecutors were piling on potential prison time by charging three versions of the same lying offense. Each count brings up to eight years in federal prison,...

[Updated 3:59 p.m. Tuesday] Hamid Hayat, the 23-year-old Lodi man on trial for terrorist-related activities in Sacramento federal court, was found guilty Tuesday, just hours after a mistrial was declared in the related trial of his father, who was accused of lying to the FBI to cover up for his son. Hayat was found guilty of providing material support to terrorists by allegedly attending an al-Qaida camp while visiting Pakistan in 2003 and three counts of lying about it. He faces up to 39 years in prison if convicted of all charges against him.

A mistrial was declared Tuesday in the federal terrorism trial of a Lodi man charged with lying to protect his son, who authorities say attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan. The announcement came one day after the jury told U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. that it could not reach a unanimous decision. "Their jury declared that it was hopelessly deadlocked this morning," deputy court clerk Carol Davis said. Burrell questioned each member of the jury and then discharged them, she said. Umer Hayat, a 48-year-old ice cream vendor, is charged with lying to FBI agents about...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - In a potential blow to their terrorism case against a father and son, federal prosecutors on Thursday said there is no evidence to support statements by their key witness that a top aide to Osama bin Laden attended a northern California mosque in the late 1990s. The surprise move was designed to dissuade the defense from calling witnesses who would challenge the story's credibility. The witness, an FBI informant, told agents when they recruited him in 2001 that he had seen a high-ranking al-Qaida official and two other international terrorists when he lived in Lodi during the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A Pakistani cleric facing deportation was accused Friday during an immigration hearing of trying to incite followers to defend Osama bin Laden and kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, seeking bail on a charge of overstaying his visa to head a Lodi mosque in the Central Valley, denied that he had made any speech against the United States. During the same hearing, a government attorney said another Lodi imam being held on immigration charges once had close ties to the Taliban. Justice Department attorney Paul Nishiie argued against releasing Ahmed on bail, saying he was linked to...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A lead FBI agent on Tuesday linked two local Muslim clerics to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, contending the two were planning to set up a school near Lodi that would breed anti-American terrorism. The agent testified that Lodi clerics Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan were prepared to relay information on terrorist plots from sources close to bin Laden. The allegations were dismissed by Ahmed's lawyer, who said the FBI and federal prosecutors have "made the whole thing up." The striking allegations came during an immigration hearing for Ahmed at which Immigration Judge Anthony Murry...

Unbeknownst to most Americans, federal prosecutors opened their case recently in the terrorism trial of a young American who studied under two Taliban-tied imams in California and whose grandfather was Pakistan’s minister of religion in the 1980’s. The trial of Hamid Hayat, 23, is not taking place in the dark of night nor in a military tribunal from which the media is barred. It is in an open California courtroom, the very kind that has been overrun for trials of the likes of Scott Peterson and O.J. Simpson. Yet in the month of February, the New York Times had exactly...

Vastly different pictures emerged today of a man charged with attending an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan, with government attorneys portraying Hamid Hayat as a trained terrorist intent on attacking Americans while his defense described him as a directionless young man prone to wild storytelling. Prosecutors said they will show the 23-year-old Lodi man traveled to Pakistan in 2003 and 2004 to train at the camp. They also said he was awaiting information about potential targets after he returned to his family's home in the heart of California's farming region. "Hamid Hayat talked about jihad before he even left the United...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday rejected bail for a Lodi man involved in a terrorism investigation, finding that his relatives could not properly post his $1.2 million bond. U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott said he was gratified by the ruling, which overturned a decision last month by a federal magistrate who approved bail for Umer Hayat. Hayat's attorney said he will appeal Wednesday's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hayat, 47, was arrested in June and charged with lying to the FBI by denying that his son attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan...

By Ross Farrow News-Sentinel Staff Writer Last updated: Friday, Jun 17, 2005 - 06:57:34 am PDT A man the FBI arrested last week on a charge of lying about attending a terrorism camp in Pakistan ironically played a role in a service in Lodi preaching peace and understanding among the world's many cultures following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Hamid Hayat, 22, remains in custody at Sacramento County Jail because of his alleged link to terrorism, yet he recited a passage from the Quran during a special service on Sept. 18, 2001, that was attended by Christians and Muslims...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A father and son from Lodi were indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that they lied to authorities investigating links to Pakistani terrorist training camps connected to al-Qaida. Hamid Hayat, 22, allegedly lied to the FBI earlier this month when he said he did not attend a terrorism camp in Pakistan last year and in 2003, prosecutors said. He was charged with two counts of lying to the FBI. His father, Umer Hayat, 47, was charged with a single count of lying to investigators when he denied that his son had attended such camps....

A lengthy investigation has uncovered a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist cell in Lodi, in the midst of California's agricultural heartland, federal authorities said yesterday. Umer Hayat, 47, an ice cream truck driver, and his son Hamid Hayat, 22, were arrested Sunday on charges of lying to the FBI. The two men, both believed to be U.S. citizens, are accused of attempting to deceive agents about Hamid Hayat's six-month stint at an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004. Authorities said the investigation has been under way for several years but declined to comment further about the breadth and...