SACRAMENTO — A federal jury Tuesday convicted a 23-year-old Lodi man of attending a terrorist training camp in Pakistan and returning to the United States to commit violent jihad against his fellow citizens.
Hamid Hayat, a Pakistani American born in Stockton, was found guilty of one count of providing material support for terrorism and three counts of lying to the FBI. He faces up to 39 years in prison at a sentencing hearing set for July 14.
The case turned largely on a confession that Hayat later contested and on conversations secretly taped by a paid FBI informant whose credibility came under repeated assault in the trial.
Earlier Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell declared a mistrial in the companion case against Hamid's father, Umer, 48, when the jury announced that it was "decisively deadlocked." Umer Hayat, also a U.S. citizen, was charged with two counts of lying to the FBI about his son's attendance at the camp in late 2003 and about his own knowledge of such camps.
The younger Hayat's conviction comes as the federal government has had a mixed record of prosecuting suspected terrorists under the formerly obscure "material support" statute.
U.S. Atty. McGregor Scott predicted that the successful prosecution would boost the war on terrorism, providing a deterrent effect.
"We have demonstrated that we're willing to spend a lot of time and resources to prevent our citizens from being killed," Scott said at a news conference, adding that he hopes would-be terrorists will now "think twice."
Scott said the investigation into potential terrorism links in Lodi continues.
"Certainly there are people of interest; that's all I'm going to say," he added.
Although Hamid Hayat's conviction was a clear victory for the prosecution, the facts in the nine-week trial of the Lodi father and son never matched the government's repeated claims that it had discovered an active Al Qaeda terrorist cell embedded in California's agricultural heartland, 35 miles south of Sacramento.
On Tuesday afternoon, the federal courtroom was crowded and tense when the jury of six men and six women presented Burrell with its unanimous verdict on the charges against Hayat.
A thin, frail man in an ill-fitting black suit, Hayat listened to the proceedings through an Urdu interpreter, showing no reaction when the string of guilty verdicts was announced. His attorney, Wazhma Mojaddidi, an Afghan American trying her first criminal case, slumped forward in her seat and briefly put her head in her arms.
