SACRAMENTO — Federal prosecutors rested their terrorism case Tuesday against a Lodi father and son by showing satellite images of a compound in remote, northeast Pakistan that closely resembled a training camp described by the son in an FBI interrogation.
Based on the satellite photographs and the videotaped questioning, Department of Defense image analyst Eric Benn concluded that the site was a "probable militant training camp." Earlier in the trial, a former Pakistani police chief testified that a militant writer -- whose books were found in a search of the Lodi man's home -- runs a training camp in that area.
It was the strongest evidence produced by government lawyers who have had problems with the credibility of their undercover FBI informant and the legitimacy of a purported confession obtained after hours of interrogation.
But the case against Lodi ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, 48, and his junior high school dropout son Hamid Hayat, 23, has so far not lived up to its advance billing as a breakthrough in the war on terror.
When the Hayats were arrested last June, federal investigators claimed they had shattered a trained Al Qaeda sleeper cell in California's agricultural heartland. And, in her opening remarks, Assistant U.S. Atty. Laura Ferris said Hamid Hayat was "awaiting orders" to commit a terrorist attack in the United States.
But no evidence has been presented that he or his father had any direct links to Al Qaeda or had specific plans to launch a terrorist attack.
During his interrogation by the FBI, Hamid Hayat, who speaks halting English, vaguely described a camp that he attended, though he never clearly indicated that he participated in any training.
Former Los Angeles federal prosecutor Jan Handzlik, now a private attorney, said the difference between the government's sensational claims and the relatively mundane drama unfolding on the 13th floor of the Sacramento federal courthouse stems from the "amorphous" charges against the two men. The younger Hayat is charged with attending a training camp in 2003; both men are charged with lying to the FBI.
"While the government asserts a vast conspiracy to harm U.S. interests," Handzlik said, "the charges against the Hayats are in fact very narrow. At issue is the truth or falsity of specific, limited statements made during lengthy FBI interrogations. Jurors sometimes sense this gap between perception and reality, and wonder why the government's proof has failed to live up to its advance billing."
