SACRAMENTO — The government had no direct evidence. The confession was vague and even contradictory. And the statements about attacking American targets came only after heavy prompting from FBI interrogators.
But what the three federal prosecutors could -- and did -- show convincingly was that 23-year-old Hamid Hayat of Lodi, Calif., espoused strong anti-American sentiments, supported militant Muslim political parties in Pakistan and had a romantic attachment to the idea of jihad.
In his closing comments to the jury, Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Tice-Raskin summed it up: "Hamid Hayat had a jihadi heart and a jihadi mind."
That was the clincher for the jury, which last week found him guilty of one count of providing material support to terrorists and three counts of lying to federal agents. He now faces up to 39 years in prison.
The proof of Hayat's views were a teenage scrapbook, a slip of paper inscribed with a warrior's prayer in Arabic, books about jihadi martyrs, and Hayat's own boastful comments secretly recorded by a man he thought was his best friend but who turned out to be a paid FBI informant.
After they established Hayat's mind-set, the prosecutors were able to overcome key obstacles: the flawed confession and nagging credibility issues with the informant. The informant's unsubstantiated claim that he had seen Osama bin Laden's top deputy in Lodi was used repeatedly to undermine him during the nine-week trial.
In interviews, several jurors said Hayat's confession and evidence of what jury foreman Joe Cote, a 64-year-old retired salesman from Folsom, Calif., called "un-Americanism" convinced them that he posed a danger.
Cote said the Arabic prayer Hayat carried in his wallet, translated by a government expert as "Oh Allah, we place you at their throats, and we seek refuge in you from their evil," was especially influential with jurors.
"It carried a lot of weight," Cote said. "A supplication is only carried in the country of the enemy. He would never carry it in Pakistan. Even though he's an American citizen, his love and his home are in Pakistan."
Juror Starr Scaccia, 53, of the Sacramento suburb of Roseville, said she was swayed by the scrapbook that Hayat kept with articles about Pakistani extremist parties that supported the Taliban and Bin Laden.
"It showed where his alliances were. It showed where his heart was," Scaccia said, echoing the "jihadi heart" refrain.
