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November 29, 2005

US: Witness in Lodi Islamist Bail Hearing Halts Testimony

The man pictured left is 47 year old Umer Hayat. Hayat, originally from Pakistan, has been accused with his 23-year old son Hamid of lying to the FBI.

On June 3 and June 4 2005, both were interviewed by FBI agaents. They were questioned, according to the testimony of Pedro Tenoch Aguilar, about whether or not Hamid, the son, had attended terrorist training camps in Pakistan, their homeland.

Hamid denied being part of such an organisation, but a polygraph questioning indicated a deception. He then admitted that he had attended such a terrorist camp, that it had been run by a-Qaeda, and he had come to the US with purposes of carrying out jihad.

Umer Hyatt at first denied his son's involvement with any terrorist training camp, but admitted after being shown video of his son's confession that he did know of the camp. He said that in Rawalpindi, Hamid had attended a madrassa owned by Umer's father in law (Hamid's grandfather), Qazi Saeed Ur Rehman, who sends students from this madrassa to jihadi camps in Pakistan. When Hamid had completed his madrassa education, he had gone to a training camp in Rawalpindi.

Umer said that he had paid for his son's flight to the US, and given his son an allowance, knowing of his intentions to set up a jihadi training camp in the US.

From this testimony, Hamid and Umer Hayat were indicted with the charge of lying to the FBI. On Thursday, 22 September, Hamid Hayat was further indicted for providing material support to a terror organisation.

For this offence of providing material support to a terrorist organisation, Umer Hayat is in federal custody in the Sacramento County jail. A judge had earlier granted Hayat bail, but this was appealed by the government.

Currently there was a pre-trial federal bail hearing underway, according to San Jose Mercury News and Lodi News, as well as kesq.com.

Bail for Umer Hayat has been set at $1.2 million, and three witnesses are offering to put up their houses as collateral against Hayat fleeing the country upon being set free. Umer Hayat had shaved off the beard he had worn in hearings since June and yesterday Safsar Afzal was being questioned.

Last week Sasfar Afzal had stated that he knew Umer Hayat very well and that he had got on well with him. Last Tuesday saw the bail hearing come to a dramatic halt, as Assistant US Attorney Laura Ferris told Afzal that the statement he had made in the bail hearing was not the same as a statement he had made to the FBI. She warned him that he could end up facing the same charges as the man he was trying to assist, namely of lying to the FBI.

Afzal's court-appointed attorney, Michael Bigelow, said yesterday that he had advised his client to say nothing more in the bail hearing, as answering more questions could put him in legal jeopardy.

US Magistrate Judge Dale Drozd has the option of striking all of Sasfar Afsal's testimony from the record, or asking the government to grant him immunity. Today, the hearing resumes with the appearance of one of the two FBI agents who first questioned Afzal.

The background to this case involves a small farming town called Lodi, south of Sacramento in the San Joaquin Valley, where a group of Muslims, mostly from Pakistan had a small mosque in Lodi. They had recently purchased an 18 acre site. The intention had been to build a Mosque school, called the Farooqia Islamic Center on the cornfield site on the Sacramento Road, but a recent ruling by San Joaquin County supervisors rejected planning permission.

The Lodi Muslim community had been founded by Muhammed Adil Khan and Shabbir Ahmed. Khan, a cleric from Pakistan, had joined the Lodi Mosque in 2001. Following investigations into alleged terror links, Khan and Ahmed were deported back to Pakistan in September.

UPDATE: San Luis Obispo states in an AP release that Judge Dale Drozd has declared that the prosecutors provoked Afzal to take the Fifth Amendment (not to incriminate oneself) and the US government wishes Afzal's testimony struck from the record.

"I couldn't believe that seriously was going to be the line of questioning", Drozd said. "I'm still having a hard time figuring out what was allegedly inconsistent."

He has delayed until tomorrow at the earliest the announcement of any ruling on whether Afzal, his father and Umer Hayat can properly make assurances that Hayat will not flee the US.

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at November 29, 2005 2:39 PM

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