Case closed for Hamid Hayat: Feds won’t seek new trial in overturned California terror case

Six months after a federal judge vacated the 2006 terrorism conviction against Hamid Hayat, prosecutors said Friday they will not pursue another trial against the former Lodi cherry picker.

“Due to the passage of time, the government now moves this court to dismiss, in the interest of justice, the indictments in this case,” federal prosecutors said in a motion filed in U.S. District Court in Sacramento.

The decision brings to a close the controversial prosecution of Hayat, who spent 14 years of a 24-year sentence in custody until U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell found last year that his trial lawyer had provided ineffective counsel and he should be released pending a decision by the government on whether to retry him.

“When Dennis said ‘Hey, congratulations, it’s over!’ I didn’t believe it,” Hayat said Friday afternoon, referring to his attorney, Dennis Riordan. “Honestly, it was like a dream. Thank you to my family, CAIR-Sacramento, my legal team and my supporters for standing by me every step of the way.”

The Council on American-Islamic Relations Sacramento Valley chapter’s Executive Director Basim Elkarra, added, “There aren’t words to express how relieved we are that Hamid is finally going to be truly free. An innocent man spent nearly 14 years in prison, a family was torn apart and an entire community was left traumatized due to prosecution taking advantage of anti-Muslim, post-9/11 hysteria. We will be here to support Hamid and his family as they work to heal after this egregious injustice.”

Sacramento’s U.S. Attorney’s office, which originally charged Hayat and his father, Umer, in highly charged, post-911 cases, said the decision was made after consultations with U.S. Justice Department officials in Washington.

“After the court vacated Hayat’s conviction based solely on the effectiveness of the lawyer of his own choosing, our office, together with DOJ’s National Security Division, undertook a careful review of the case and the evidence that would be available to us at a retrial,” U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott’s office said in a statement. “Having concluded that review, we have determined that the passage of time and the interests of justice counsel against resurrecting this 15‑year‑old case.”

Read the motion to dismiss Hamid Hayat

Hayat and his attorneys have denied he had any involvement in terrorism, insisting he fell victim to the emotions of the post-911 era and what they saw as overzealous efforts by the FBI to prove he had sought training in a terror camp in his family’s homeland of Pakistan.

“Hamid Hayat, his family, and his counsel appreciate the decision of the federal government today to dismiss the charges against him rather than seeking a retrial,” Riordan said in a statement. “That decision was obviously correct.

“Two federal judges have concluded that Hamid would not have been found guilty had the powerful evidence of his innocence that won his freedom in 2019 been presented to his jury in 2006. While we are grateful for the dismissal, the 14 years Hamid spent behind bars on charges of which he was innocent remain a grave miscarriage of justice. They serve as a stark example of how, in the post 9/11 era, the government’s effort to protect the public from terrorism could and did in this case go terribly wrong. Hamid’s exoneration is a cause for celebration, but the story of his case is tragedy that must not be repeated.”

Friday’s decision comes after extraordinary legal proceedings involving Hayat and his original conviction before Burrell.

For years after the conviction, Hayat’s lawyers had sought his release, eventually winning a new evidentiary hearing before U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Barnes, who ultimately issued a 116-page recommendation to Burrell that the conviction be vacated, citing ineffective representation by his original defense attorney, a woman who at the time had never before tried a criminal case in federal court.

That 2018 hearing involved weeks of testimony in which Riordan claimed the FBI had coerced Hayat into false confessions and said that the training camp Hayat supposedly visited was not open at the time he was in Pakistan. He also said that alibi witnesses who could prove Hayat’s innocence were not produced at the original trial, some some eventually were called via video sessions from Pakistan in highly unusual nighttime court sessions in Sacramento.

Seven months after Barnes made her recommendation, Burrell adopted it and ordered Hayat’s release.

Hayat was arrested after returning from a trip to Pakistan that his family said was for medical care and to find a bride for him.

The government claimed Hayat, then 22, had allegedly taken part in explosives and weapons training that included using photos of President George W. Bush as targets.

Hayat’s father, Umer, was also charged but jurors could not reach a verdict in his case and he later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was sentenced to time served.

Hamid Hayat, who was born in San Joaquin County in 1982, was found guilty in 2006 after what his appellate attorney said was a failure by his original lawyer, Wazhma Mojaddidi of Sacramento.