Lodi ice cream terrorist case: US government has satellite photos of terrorist camps in Pakistan

Testimony to begin in Calif. terror case

DON THOMPSON

Associated Press

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - Hamid Hayat's family says he went to Pakistan in April 2003 to attend a religious school and get married. The U.S. government believes he went to a terrorist training camp and planned to attack American hospitals and supermarkets.

Opening arguments are set for Thursday in the trial of Hayat, 23, who is charged with supporting terrorists by attending the camp in 2003 and 2004, and then lying about it to the FBI. A jury was selected Wednesday.

Testimony against his father, Umer Hayat, 48, is set to begin next week before a separate jury. He is charged with lying to the FBI about his son attending the camp.

Both men have been in custody since their arrests last June and have pleaded not guilty to charges. Both deny the son attended the camp.

Prosecutors say Hamid Hayat returned to his home in Lodi, an agricultural community about 35 miles south of Sacramento, with the intent of committing holy war.

Their case involves statements prosecutors say the men made to a confidential government informant in the United States, the men's purported videotaped confessions and the photographs they say show the actual camp.

The Pakistani government denied any of the camps exist. Prosecutors, however, said they have satellite images "of a location consistent in appearance with the militant training camp that Hamid Hayat ultimately confessed that he attended," according to the 60-page trial brief filed Tuesday night.

Defense attorneys have not offered an alibi to show that Hamid Hayat was anywhere other than where prosecutors say he was. But they contend the informant asked leading questions and that the FBI pressured the father and son to confess without a lawyer or interpreter present.

The prosecution document disclosed that the investigations of the Hayats and of two Lodi Islamic religious leaders were "separate but related," although they said the Hayats discussed the imams during conversations secretly recorded by the informant, who was paid by the government.

The two clerics and one cleric's son were deported to Pakistan last year for immigration violations.

Prosecutors also disclosed that the informant, who infiltrated Lodi's Islamic community shortly after the 2001 terrorist attacks, spent two days in jail in 1993 after he pleaded guilty to misdemeanor burglary. The conviction was dismissed after he completed probation.

Prosecutors asked U.S. District Court Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. to rule before testimony begins that the defense cannot tell jurors of the previous conviction.

Umer Hayat is charged with two counts of making false statements to FBI agents and faces eight years in prison if convicted. His son is charged with three counts of making false statements to the FBI about attending the camp and with providing material support to terrorists. If convicted, he faces up to 31 years in prison.