April 8, 2020 • 30 mins
How could anyone believe a confession about 1,000 pole-vaulting terrorists all dressed like Ninja Turtles?
This week, Laura Nirider and Steve Drizin tell us a story with some of the most outlandish false confessions ever heard. And yet, California native, Hamid Hayat, was wrongfully convicted of terrorism in the years following the horrific 9/11 attacks. Investigators thought Hamid was part of a terrorist sleeper cell, though eventually they learned no such terrorist cell ever existed.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
writer and I'm Steve Drisen. In the wake of nine eleven,
keeping America safe was everyone's priority. But what happens when
an innocent man gets accused of terrorism based on a
false confession. Today's case includes one of the most outlandish
confessions I've ever heard, a thousand pole vaulting terrorists, all
(00:25):
dressed up like ninja turtles. It's a story that sounds
like the punchline of a joke instead of the path
to a conviction. But for US citizen Hammed Hyatt, the
verdict was no joke at all. Usually we start each
(00:48):
episode by telling you about a crime, but in today's story,
there was both a crime on a scale we've never
seen before and no crime at all. You see, this
case took place right after the horrific nine eleven attacks.
Thousands of Americans had died, and pressure was building on
our government to prevent more attacks. Make no mistake, there
(01:09):
was a lot of good police work done to keep
us all safe, but sometimes fear started to override good
decision making. Some law enforcement efforts became driven by panic
and even prejudice, not proof. This story is one of
the times we got it wrong. In two thousand five,
California native and US citizen Hahmed Hyatt was accused of
(01:34):
being part of a home grown terrorist sleeper cell. Years later,
the government admitted that no such sleeper cell ever existed,
but Hahmed had falsely confessed. He spent more than a
decade in prison before being cleared. As prosecutors prepared for trial,
they review the evidence that the FBI agents obtained in
(01:56):
the case, and they look at the interrogation and tapes,
and you have to wonder what the prosecutors in this
case we're thinking when they saw these tapes. What were
they thinking when the corroboration of this case was so thin.
Hammed is one of the first post nine eleven terrorism
defendants to be exonerated, and he probably won't be the last.
(02:21):
His story is a caution to us all when we're
talking about our national security, there's nothing more important than
getting it right. Hammed's story takes place in Lodi, California,
a medium sized town halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento.
(02:41):
Lowd Eyes downtown looks like the set of an old western,
complete with a train depot from gold Rush days. But
if you go south a mile you'll find a large
Pakistani American community where families wear traditional clothing and center
their lives around the local mosque. We'll get to Lodi
in a minute, but our story starts in Oregon. That's
(03:03):
where FBI agents traveled in October two thousand one looking
for a suspected terrorist named Nasim Khan. The Nasim Khan
they found was a twenty eight year old convenience store employee.
The FBI quickly realized this guy had nothing to do
with terrorism. He simply had the same name as their suspect.
(03:24):
But with the FBI at his door, Naseem smelled an opportunity.
He gave the agents the biggest tip he could conjure up.
He claimed to have seen I'm in all Zawahiri, one
of the most wanted terrorists in the world, at a
mosque in Lodi, California. It's ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous that our
Solomon Lawn's number two person would make it into the
(03:48):
United States without detection, and of all places, settle in Lodi, California.
The FBI, to its credit, didn't believe Naseem. They figured
out soon enough that he had a rep mutation for lying.
Even his own mother later called Nasim a bag full
of lies, air and deceit. But this was a month
(04:09):
after nine eleven and the government was desperate to recruit
informants who could infiltrate Muslim American communities and expose any
sleeper cells. Somehow, they decided na Seem was their guy.
Being hired as an informant was a pretty big deal
for Nasim. He went from working in a convenience store
to getting a cool FBI nickname Wildcat. He earned hundreds
(04:33):
of thousands of dollars on the US government payroll. The
FEDS even paid for his car washes In exchange, they
asked him to target the Lodi, California community. By early
two thousand two, Naseem wormed his way into low ties
Pakistani neighborhoods. He started befriending people looking for any information
the FBI might consider useful, and pretty soon Nis began
(04:57):
focusing on the Hyatt family, especially nineteen year old Hammed. Now,
the Hyatt family was well known in Lodi, they had
no history of political involvement or extremism whatsoever. Hahmed's dad,
Umer was the local ice cream truck driver. The pairing
of Nasim and Hahmed was a strange pairing from the
(05:19):
get go. Nassin was ten years older than Hahmed, and
Hamed nineteen or so at the time, acted much more
immaturely than his age. He had suffered a terrible bout
of meningitis years earlier, which left him cognitively and physically slower.
As a child, Hamed had split his time between his
(05:40):
home in the US and his relatives home in Pakistan.
Because of all the travel, he'd only finished elementary school,
and he didn't have many friends in the States. So
when Nassim, the informant, befriended him, Hammed couldn't believe his luck.
Nassim was paying attention to Hammed, and very few people
were the community inload I paid much attention to Hammed.
(06:04):
Nasim was older, he had a fancy car, and apparently
endless money. This is the guy who wanted to chat
up Hamed. Hahmed was in Nasiemen. Hammed became friends, or
at least so Hammed thought. Over the next year or two,
Nasim and Hammed started having hours of phone conversations that
Nisim was secretly recording. On those calls. Nasim portrayed himself
(06:28):
as an extremist and told Hammed he'd been involved in
jihadi activities for years. Pretty Soon, hapless Hamed started trying
to impress Nasim by making up fake stories about his
own exploits. Once Hamed said he participated in a Taliban attack,
another time he claimed he had been held in a
Pakistani jail. And when Nasim said that he wanted to
(06:50):
go to a terrorist training camp, Hammed said that sounded cool.
Fast forward a year to two thousand three, Hammed twenty one,
and his parents take him to Pakistan to find a
bride for Nasim. This trip with a chance to up
the anti to bully Hammed into actually going to a
(07:11):
terrorist training camp. He starts telling Hamed that he's going
to come to Pakistan himself and force Hammed into jihadi training,
but Hamed refuses. He fends Nasim off with one excuse
after another. It's too hot to go to a training camp,
it's too difficult, I need to stay with my sick mother.
It's pretty obvious Hamed has zero interest in becoming a terrorist. Finally,
(07:35):
he straight out tells Nasin he's never going to a camp.
It was their last phone call. Hamed gets married in
Pakistan and ends up staying there for two years until
June two thousand five, when he decides to go back
to the United States. He boards a plane in Pakistan,
but the plane gets diverted to Tokyo because it turns
(07:56):
out Hamed is on the no fly list. The whole
all Hyatt families ushered off the plane and the FBI
questions them about why they were overseas and who they
were with. They even asked if the men Hammed was
hanging out with had facial hair. Eventually, the family is
allowed to get back on the plane and fly to California,
but a day or two later, the FBI shows up
(08:19):
again at the Hyatt family home and brings Hamed into
the Sacramento office for more questioning. Now let's step back
for a minute. By June two thousand five, there'd been
a three year multi agency Federal Terrorism Task Force investigation
that revolved around Nasim Khan and his stories. None of
(08:41):
Nasim's claims yielded any real information about terrorism despite all
the money he'd been paid, so by mid two thousand five,
the FBI was feeling pressure to show results in the
worst way, and they got results from the Hyatt family
in the worst way. How much interrogation begins on June third,
(09:10):
two five, at about eleven thirty in the morning, and
it would go on for hours and hours before the
agents turned on the video cameras. They start taping at
five o'clock in the afternoon. You can see skinny little Hammed,
very nervous, sitting in a chair that's pushed against the
(09:30):
wall of a small windowless room. He's facing two FBI
agents who are staring him down. The policy of the
FBI at this time was that the decision to record
interrogations was left in the discretion of agents, so it
was unusual that they would record these interrogations. But thank
(09:52):
god they did, because otherwise we wouldn't have the record
that we do have about how at least some of
Hamed's interrogation went down. As soon as the tapes rolling,
the agents accuse Hamed of spending between three and six
months at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, and then
(10:13):
come two lies. First, they say he failed a polygraph
that he apparently took earlier that day. Second, they claim
to have satellite photographs of a camp, implying Hamed's in
those photos. Neither was true, and then the agents offer
him help. As long as he talks over and over
(10:35):
and over, they promise that they're there to help him.
Hamed looks desperate to please these guys. He says he
wants to cooperate for my country, from my country to
ant in Uns because you know these guys are hunting
our country. Well, I appreciate that. I mean in supportant
you know everything internally sees or you know our troops
(10:56):
are looking. They're very hard, you know, making peace in
the whole world. Friend, because they're making peace, they're making
peace for us so we can get together, all of us.
And what do they do with these camps there? What
they're doing is teaging people out to kill American tup
of course, right, that's what the camps are all about.
The interrogation goes on for hours into the night, until
Hammed starts breaking. He tells the agents he did go
(11:18):
to a camp in Pakistan for several months, but his
story makes no sense. It's laughable. They asked him when
he'd gone to the camp. At first, Hammed said it
was during the hot season, but then he says it
was during the cold season. When they asked him to
describe the camp, Hammed's answer is just pathetic. He says
the whole place had only four weapons in it, a shotgun,
(11:41):
two pistols, and a machine gun. He said the only
weapon that he had handled was actually a pistol and
he'd only shot at three or four times. What kind
of training is that? The agents asked Commed where the
camp was, and he keeps switching his story there too.
First it was in rural Afghanistan, then it was in
rural Kistan. All over the map here and yeah, helping
(12:03):
yourself by doing that. You know when what minute you're
saying Northwest Frontier, next minute you're saying cash, you're where
this building was good? The city was in Yes, yeah,
i'll see court. It's not that you will say you
know where it is, you know where the building is?
Tell me where was it? Benacord endbl and NWFP color.
(12:23):
And of course, remember Hamed had said none of this
to Nisine Khan, despite years of recorded phone cars. Instead,
he told to Seem he'd never go to a training camp.
It's only after this interrogation that Hamed starts saying whatever
he thinks the agents want to hear, and piece by piece,
the agents feed him nearly all the information in his confession,
(12:47):
down to the types of buildings he was supposedly going
to attack in the United States. There are certain kinds
of targets that you know, are are good targets, you know,
if you're going to be worth your salt as a GIATI,
you know about this targets, buildings in seid things, what
kind of os take a baby, you know? Okay, financial
(13:08):
buildings and private buildings, commercial buildings, United commercial partings and
that those kind of things. Um, all right, you're not yeah,
but I'm not sure about the building you guys are
talking about the big ones. I was seeing him finance?
What else? What else did they tell you about? Hospitals?
(13:29):
Maybe Hammed's confession is not very believable, so the FBI
needs corroboration. While those agents are questioning Hammed, other agents
bringing his dad, umor the ice cream truck driver and
start questioning him too. They tell Umer that Hamed admitted
going to a training camp in Pakistan, and they start
(13:49):
pressuring Umer to say he also went to visit Hammed,
just like a parent would check out his kids college. Eventually,
Umer agrees that he had gone to visit Hamed, but
his story is totally wild. Hamed had described a rural
camp in a forested area, but Umer says the camps
in rawal Pindi, a two million person city, and Umor's
(14:12):
description well, he says he saw one thousand fighters at
this camp and they're all in a huge underground basement
practicing pole vaulting. Do you know how high a ceiling
has to be in order to poll vault? I'll take ship.
You don't do an abasement for five hundred alex. And
it gets even crazier because, according to Umer, those pole
vaulters are dressed up like Ninja turtles. Umer later explained
(14:36):
that he lifted the story from the movie Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles he'd recently seen it on TV. All this
goes on and on. Both men keep spinning stories and
the agents aren't really getting anywhere. At three am, Hamed
starts complaining that his head hurts. He asks to go
(14:57):
home and get some sleep. Kashmir, He telling me Afghanistan
a blame it on whatever you want to blame on,
but what's going to end up happening? To night? He's
ran up the rest of them. Okay, so here are open. No, No,
you're not leaving here tonight now, I mean tomorrow. I'm
going to be here tonight to stay here, and that ever,
you're gonna go to jail. So instead the agents arrest
(15:23):
him and charge him with lending material support to terrorism.
Suddenly he's pacing up to thirty years in prison for
his part. Ms also arrested based on the crazy ninja
turtle statement. He's charged with two counts of lying to
federal agents. The Hyatts arrest was a huge news story. Now,
(15:47):
some media outlets were skeptical. They ran stories highlighting the
pole vaulting and the ninja turtles and the crazy mismatch
between what Hahmed and his dad had said. But other
media bought it all hook line and sinker. They covered
the story as proof that domestic sleeper cells existed. You
throw a word out there, you throw the word terror,
(16:08):
you throw the word martyr, you throw the word gihad
out into public space, and people will believe almost anything
because the fear is so great. There's a federal trial
to get ready for, and the Hyatt family hires lawyers.
But while the lawyer that Umer hires is very experienced.
Hahmed gets a novice. She'd never gone before a jury before.
(16:32):
The plan was for her to imitate whatever Umer's lawyer did,
but that was no plan at all. The cases were
totally different, very different charges, very different confessions. Hahmed needed
his own defense, but he didn't get one, or at
least not a very good one. I mean, I've had
some trial experience in my career, I know my way
(16:52):
around a criminal courtroom. We've had contested hearings in our
own post conviction cases, and I know were about false confessions,
and a lot of other attorneys who practice in this area,
but there is no way that I would ever take
a case like this. This case required a trial lawyer
(17:13):
and one who had worked with a security clearance and
had done cases in federal court against the FBI. Hamed's
lawyer had some of the best false confession experts in
her backyard, including doctor Richard Leo at the University of
San Francisco, but when Hahmed's trial rolled around in two
thousand six, his lawyer didn't call Dr Leo to testify.
(17:36):
Hamed's lawyer also didn't adequately challenge the government's claim that
he carried a jihadi prayer in his wallet. Hamed did
carry a note a tawise, a standard Pakistani Muslim prayer
for good health and protection. It was a gift from
Hamed's uncle after the meningitis, but Hahmed's lawyer didn't clearly
(17:58):
explain that the note had nothing to do with terrorism,
and the jury was left to think the worst. I mean,
it's a travel prayer. You know, Jews travel with eighteen
cents in their front pocket when they go on an airplane.
All right, well, I feel comfortable traveling with you, Steve.
You're gott me covered spiritually. No, I kind of of
elapsed Jews. But people have these prayers with regard to travel,
(18:20):
and that's what my understanding of this tawees was. I mean,
the language that that expert use makes it sound very ominous,
but I'm not sure that that was the right translation.
Despite a pretty weak defense, Hamed's conviction was far from guaranteed.
Even after hearing his confession, the jury still took nine
days to reach a decision, but in the end their
(18:42):
verdict guilty. Later, it came out that there had been
instances of jury misconduct during deliberations. The jury foreman himself
had said that if you put all Muslims in the
same costume, they all look alike. Umar Hyatt's trial, on
the other hand, ended in a mistry no verdict at all.
He ended up pleading guilty to some minor customs violations
(19:05):
and was released but Hammed. On September tenth, two thousand seven,
Hahmed Hyatt was sentenced to twenty four years in prison.
It was one day before the sixth anniversary of the
nine eleven attacks. Federal prison is no picnic for anyone,
(19:25):
especially not a young Musliman who has been convicted of terrorism.
Most inmates are allowed only a limited number of visits,
something like once a week. Hamed was allowed only one
visit per year from his family members. His dad Umor
didn't get permission to see him for more than eight years.
But even while Hamed endured prison, he grew up. For
(19:47):
the first time. He was meeting people of different faiths
and backgrounds, albeit behind bars, and he began to realize
that those things he'd said to impress no seem about
terrorism being cool, we're toxic. When a reporter interviewed him
in Hammed retracted everything he told the reporter it was wrong.
(20:09):
What I said, I totally disagree with myself. I didn't
know much then, I wasn't open minded about a lot
of stuff. So Hammed is in prison, and he's doing
(20:29):
his time, and his case is winding its way through
the system. He's losing at every stage. And then Hamed
gets a new lawyer, a great lawyer by the name
of Dennis Reardon. For those of you who are real
true crime junkies, you might remember Dennis Reardon as one
of the leading lawyers on the team that freed the
West Memphis three. For us, of course, the important thing
(20:51):
about the case is that this was not about just
a bad trial. You can have cases like that where
someone's rights violated. We passionately believe and knew we knew
it was an actual innocence case. So Dennis starts investigating
the time that Hamed spent in Pakistan between two thousand
three and two thousand five. Remember the government said that
(21:14):
during those two years, Hammed went off for three months
to a training camp. And what does Dennis discover alibi witnesses,
eighteen of them. They described in great detail his daily routine.
He was generally almost every day in the native village
except for the time when he took two trips to
raoul Pindi with his mother. So there were witnesses from
(21:38):
ral Pindi, there were witnesses from the village of Babouti.
He had never been out of their sight for more
than at most a couple of days and had never
attended a camp as the government alleged for three to
six months. Person after person comes forward to say that
when Hamed was in Pakistan, he was living with family
(21:58):
and friends. The whole line, there were no three month
unexplained absences. He spent his days playing soccer, not training
for jihad. Hammed was no terrorist, He was totally innocent.
Dennis prepares an appeal based on these alibis. He's granted
a hearing a chance to make the case for Hamed's innocence.
The alibi witnesses testify at the hearing over a live
(22:21):
video feed from Pakistan. Dennis also called that false confession.
Expert to the stand, Doctor Richard Leo and Dr Leo
testified that this confession was useless. It wasn't worth the
tape that it was recorded on, and of course if
you look at the interrogation itself, one of the almost
humorous aspects of it was that he was painfully thin
(22:45):
and hardly looked like someone who had trained for terrorist activities,
and in fact gave this description during this marathon interrogation
where he's trying very hard to please them and give
them answers. Well, I was in the camp. Well do
you ever do arms trading? Well, they gave me a
rifle once, but it was too heavy for me, so
they never gave it to me again, and so what
(23:07):
they had me do was peel vegetables in the kitchen.
The media is following all of this. A PBS Frontline
episode had been made questioning Hamed's conviction. A written piece
in the Intercept did the same thing, and while the
hearing was going on, an episode of the Netflix series
The Confession Tapes also pointed to Hamed's innocence. His case
(23:29):
was attracting supporters, momentum was building fast. So what does
the government do. They offer Hamed his freedom, but he's
got to plead guilty. As a lawyer, you're obligated to
go to client and say the government is still talking
about potentially helping you out if you provide them with
information about Pakistan, And he said, I have nothing to
provide them with. Now we've heard the story way too often.
(23:52):
As soon as the case starts falling apart, the government
offers a deal. It lets prosecutors save face, and it's
pretty hard for any defendant to down. But Hammed, he said,
I've gone through all of that and I am not
going to stand up and say that I did something
I didn't do. And we said, you know, we have
a very strong case, but there's no way we can
(24:14):
guarantee you that it will succeed. And he said, I'm
prepared to see this through. Years ago, he refused to
go to a camp when the scene pressured him. Now
he refuses to say he went to a camp. He
turns down the deal. Instead, he bets that the truth
will set him free. Turns out he was right to
(24:35):
take that bet. You just see before you click on it,
there's an order of the district court, and you know
you're talking about ten seconds of absolute terra. And then
I clicked on it and the conviction is overturned. I'll
admit it. I wept. I really did. On July, after
(24:57):
fourteen years behind bars, Hamed Hyatt's conviction was thrown out
based on his trial attorney's in effectiveness. If Hamed's lawyer
had called those alibi witnesses, the court found, he would
have been acquitted. So where's Hammed today? Laura Hammed was
freed on August and formally exonerated just a few months ago.
(25:21):
On Valentine's Day, the government dismissed all charges against him.
He's the first post nine eleven international terrorism defendant to
be officially cleared of any wrongdoing, and his family knew
that he had been freed, but they didn't know what
was the next step. Family was brought to the Council
(25:42):
on American Islamic Relations, not knowing that he would be there.
And the video of his mother seeing him for the
first time in fourteen years because she was never able
to visit him, and then the same with his father,
(26:03):
ja Ja. It was extraordinary. Everyone wept just watching it.
Since his exoneration, Hammed's been taking life one day at
a time. He's living in California, although not in Lodi,
(26:25):
and he's reconnecting with his family, including nieces and nephews
who were born while he was locked up. But like
all Axonorees, he's struggling to navigate a world that's really
different than the one he was taken from in two
thousand five. When I saw him a few months ago,
I asked him if he was okay. He looked at
me for a long time and simply said, no, I'm not.
(26:50):
Hamed's got a lot of healing to do. But the
good news he's got an enormous number of supporters who
believe in him and Hammed, we're here to say for
you too. Hey, how it is that you? Hey, Laura,
are you doing good? Good? What do you hope to
you today? Not much? Where you stand these daby send
with your family? Yes, um, with my family? Yes? What's
(27:13):
it like to be back with your family after so
many years away? Truly a blessing. They always believed in you.
My family was there, my legal team was there, all
my supporters. That was my hope, my current Where do
you see yourself five years from now? I just want
to go back to school, give my eye school to Phoneline,
then go to college. After that. I hope you'll find
a good job. I see you on social media posting
(27:36):
pictures of you with your nieces and nephews. It's amazing.
You've been out what since August and you're already way
better than me at Instagram. So the checks and balances
in our criminal justice system failed miserably in this case.
(27:58):
And I think it's not because these are bad people
or they were trying to frame Hahmed Hyad and his father.
I think it's because they were operating in the panic
and fear that everybody in this country was living under
in the wake of nine eleven. And in that context,
(28:19):
I think standards for what a good cases sometimes get ignored,
Standards start being cut shorts, and the results is the
taking of more innocent life. Right in this case, fourteen
years from the life of Hamed Hyad. When Hammed was released,
(28:40):
he said, I still think this is a dream. I
wake up and I still think I'm in prison. I'll
never be able to pay back my sisters and brothers,
none of my supporters. I'm your servant until the day
of judgment. That's the story of Hahmed Hyatt. Next week,
(29:02):
join us as we go to South Carolina. Will take
you to a fight for justice that's stuck with Steve
his entire career until then. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction,
False Confessions. Wrongful conviction false Confessions is a production of
lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
(29:25):
Special thanks to our executive producer Jason Flom and the
team at Signal Company number one Executive producer Kevin Wardace,
Senior Producer and Pope, and additional production and editing by
Connor Hall. Special thanks to jog Hammer for additional script
editing and for wrangling and writing like a madwoman. Our
music was composed by j Ralph. You can follow me
(29:47):
on Instagram or Twitter at Laura night Rider and you
can follow me on Twitter at s Drizen. For more
information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast dot com
and be sure to follow the show on Instagram m
at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
on Twitter at wrong Conviction MHM
Welcome to wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
writer and I'm Steve Drisen. In the wake of nine eleven,
keeping America safe was everyone's priority. But what happens when
an innocent man gets accused of terrorism based on a
false confession. Today's case includes one of the most outlandish
confessions I've ever heard, a thousand pole vaulting terrorists, all
(00:25):
dressed up like ninja turtles. It's a story that sounds
like the punchline of a joke instead of the path
to a conviction. But for US citizen Hammed Hyatt, the
verdict was no joke at all. Usually we start each
(00:48):
episode by telling you about a crime, but in today's story,
there was both a crime on a scale we've never
seen before and no crime at all. You see, this
case took place right after the horrific nine eleven attacks.
Thousands of Americans had died, and pressure was building on
our government to prevent more attacks. Make no mistake, there
(01:09):
was a lot of good police work done to keep
us all safe, but sometimes fear started to override good
decision making. Some law enforcement efforts became driven by panic
and even prejudice, not proof. This story is one of
the times we got it wrong. In two thousand five,
California native and US citizen Hahmed Hyatt was accused of
(01:34):
being part of a home grown terrorist sleeper cell. Years later,
the government admitted that no such sleeper cell ever existed,
but Hahmed had falsely confessed. He spent more than a
decade in prison before being cleared. As prosecutors prepared for trial,
they review the evidence that the FBI agents obtained in
(01:56):
the case, and they look at the interrogation and tapes,
and you have to wonder what the prosecutors in this
case we're thinking when they saw these tapes. What were
they thinking when the corroboration of this case was so thin.
Hammed is one of the first post nine eleven terrorism
defendants to be exonerated, and he probably won't be the last.
(02:21):
His story is a caution to us all when we're
talking about our national security, there's nothing more important than
getting it right. Hammed's story takes place in Lodi, California,
a medium sized town halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento.
(02:41):
Lowd Eyes downtown looks like the set of an old western,
complete with a train depot from gold Rush days. But
if you go south a mile you'll find a large
Pakistani American community where families wear traditional clothing and center
their lives around the local mosque. We'll get to Lodi
in a minute, but our story starts in Oregon. That's
(03:03):
where FBI agents traveled in October two thousand one looking
for a suspected terrorist named Nasim Khan. The Nasim Khan
they found was a twenty eight year old convenience store employee.
The FBI quickly realized this guy had nothing to do
with terrorism. He simply had the same name as their suspect.
(03:24):
But with the FBI at his door, Naseem smelled an opportunity.
He gave the agents the biggest tip he could conjure up.
He claimed to have seen I'm in all Zawahiri, one
of the most wanted terrorists in the world, at a
mosque in Lodi, California. It's ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous that our
Solomon Lawn's number two person would make it into the
(03:48):
United States without detection, and of all places, settle in Lodi, California.
The FBI, to its credit, didn't believe Naseem. They figured
out soon enough that he had a rep mutation for lying.
Even his own mother later called Nasim a bag full
of lies, air and deceit. But this was a month
(04:09):
after nine eleven and the government was desperate to recruit
informants who could infiltrate Muslim American communities and expose any
sleeper cells. Somehow, they decided na Seem was their guy.
Being hired as an informant was a pretty big deal
for Nasim. He went from working in a convenience store
to getting a cool FBI nickname Wildcat. He earned hundreds
(04:33):
of thousands of dollars on the US government payroll. The
FEDS even paid for his car washes In exchange, they
asked him to target the Lodi, California community. By early
two thousand two, Naseem wormed his way into low ties
Pakistani neighborhoods. He started befriending people looking for any information
the FBI might consider useful, and pretty soon Nis began
(04:57):
focusing on the Hyatt family, especially nineteen year old Hammed. Now,
the Hyatt family was well known in Lodi, they had
no history of political involvement or extremism whatsoever. Hahmed's dad,
Umer was the local ice cream truck driver. The pairing
of Nasim and Hahmed was a strange pairing from the
(05:19):
get go. Nassin was ten years older than Hahmed, and
Hamed nineteen or so at the time, acted much more
immaturely than his age. He had suffered a terrible bout
of meningitis years earlier, which left him cognitively and physically slower.
As a child, Hamed had split his time between his
(05:40):
home in the US and his relatives home in Pakistan.
Because of all the travel, he'd only finished elementary school,
and he didn't have many friends in the States. So
when Nassim, the informant, befriended him, Hammed couldn't believe his luck.
Nassim was paying attention to Hammed, and very few people
were the community inload I paid much attention to Hammed.
(06:04):
Nasim was older, he had a fancy car, and apparently
endless money. This is the guy who wanted to chat
up Hamed. Hahmed was in Nasiemen. Hammed became friends, or
at least so Hammed thought. Over the next year or two,
Nasim and Hammed started having hours of phone conversations that
Nisim was secretly recording. On those calls. Nasim portrayed himself
(06:28):
as an extremist and told Hammed he'd been involved in
jihadi activities for years. Pretty Soon, hapless Hamed started trying
to impress Nasim by making up fake stories about his
own exploits. Once Hamed said he participated in a Taliban attack,
another time he claimed he had been held in a
Pakistani jail. And when Nasim said that he wanted to
(06:50):
go to a terrorist training camp, Hammed said that sounded cool.
Fast forward a year to two thousand three, Hammed twenty one,
and his parents take him to Pakistan to find a
bride for Nasim. This trip with a chance to up
the anti to bully Hammed into actually going to a
(07:11):
terrorist training camp. He starts telling Hamed that he's going
to come to Pakistan himself and force Hammed into jihadi training,
but Hamed refuses. He fends Nasim off with one excuse
after another. It's too hot to go to a training camp,
it's too difficult, I need to stay with my sick mother.
It's pretty obvious Hamed has zero interest in becoming a terrorist. Finally,
(07:35):
he straight out tells Nasin he's never going to a camp.
It was their last phone call. Hamed gets married in
Pakistan and ends up staying there for two years until
June two thousand five, when he decides to go back
to the United States. He boards a plane in Pakistan,
but the plane gets diverted to Tokyo because it turns
(07:56):
out Hamed is on the no fly list. The whole
all Hyatt families ushered off the plane and the FBI
questions them about why they were overseas and who they
were with. They even asked if the men Hammed was
hanging out with had facial hair. Eventually, the family is
allowed to get back on the plane and fly to California,
but a day or two later, the FBI shows up
(08:19):
again at the Hyatt family home and brings Hamed into
the Sacramento office for more questioning. Now let's step back
for a minute. By June two thousand five, there'd been
a three year multi agency Federal Terrorism Task Force investigation
that revolved around Nasim Khan and his stories. None of
(08:41):
Nasim's claims yielded any real information about terrorism despite all
the money he'd been paid, so by mid two thousand five,
the FBI was feeling pressure to show results in the
worst way, and they got results from the Hyatt family
in the worst way. How much interrogation begins on June third,
(09:10):
two five, at about eleven thirty in the morning, and
it would go on for hours and hours before the
agents turned on the video cameras. They start taping at
five o'clock in the afternoon. You can see skinny little Hammed,
very nervous, sitting in a chair that's pushed against the
(09:30):
wall of a small windowless room. He's facing two FBI
agents who are staring him down. The policy of the
FBI at this time was that the decision to record
interrogations was left in the discretion of agents, so it
was unusual that they would record these interrogations. But thank
(09:52):
god they did, because otherwise we wouldn't have the record
that we do have about how at least some of
Hamed's interrogation went down. As soon as the tapes rolling,
the agents accuse Hamed of spending between three and six
months at a terrorist training camp in Pakistan, and then
(10:13):
come two lies. First, they say he failed a polygraph
that he apparently took earlier that day. Second, they claim
to have satellite photographs of a camp, implying Hamed's in
those photos. Neither was true, and then the agents offer
him help. As long as he talks over and over
(10:35):
and over, they promise that they're there to help him.
Hamed looks desperate to please these guys. He says he
wants to cooperate for my country, from my country to
ant in Uns because you know these guys are hunting
our country. Well, I appreciate that. I mean in supportant
you know everything internally sees or you know our troops
(10:56):
are looking. They're very hard, you know, making peace in
the whole world. Friend, because they're making peace, they're making
peace for us so we can get together, all of us.
And what do they do with these camps there? What
they're doing is teaging people out to kill American tup
of course, right, that's what the camps are all about.
The interrogation goes on for hours into the night, until
Hammed starts breaking. He tells the agents he did go
(11:18):
to a camp in Pakistan for several months, but his
story makes no sense. It's laughable. They asked him when
he'd gone to the camp. At first, Hammed said it
was during the hot season, but then he says it
was during the cold season. When they asked him to
describe the camp, Hammed's answer is just pathetic. He says
the whole place had only four weapons in it, a shotgun,
(11:41):
two pistols, and a machine gun. He said the only
weapon that he had handled was actually a pistol and
he'd only shot at three or four times. What kind
of training is that? The agents asked Commed where the
camp was, and he keeps switching his story there too.
First it was in rural Afghanistan, then it was in
rural Kistan. All over the map here and yeah, helping
(12:03):
yourself by doing that. You know when what minute you're
saying Northwest Frontier, next minute you're saying cash, you're where
this building was good? The city was in Yes, yeah,
i'll see court. It's not that you will say you
know where it is, you know where the building is?
Tell me where was it? Benacord endbl and NWFP color.
(12:23):
And of course, remember Hamed had said none of this
to Nisine Khan, despite years of recorded phone cars. Instead,
he told to Seem he'd never go to a training camp.
It's only after this interrogation that Hamed starts saying whatever
he thinks the agents want to hear, and piece by piece,
the agents feed him nearly all the information in his confession,
(12:47):
down to the types of buildings he was supposedly going
to attack in the United States. There are certain kinds
of targets that you know, are are good targets, you know,
if you're going to be worth your salt as a GIATI,
you know about this targets, buildings in seid things, what
kind of os take a baby, you know? Okay, financial
(13:08):
buildings and private buildings, commercial buildings, United commercial partings and
that those kind of things. Um, all right, you're not yeah,
but I'm not sure about the building you guys are
talking about the big ones. I was seeing him finance?
What else? What else did they tell you about? Hospitals?
(13:29):
Maybe Hammed's confession is not very believable, so the FBI
needs corroboration. While those agents are questioning Hammed, other agents
bringing his dad, umor the ice cream truck driver and
start questioning him too. They tell Umer that Hamed admitted
going to a training camp in Pakistan, and they start
(13:49):
pressuring Umer to say he also went to visit Hammed,
just like a parent would check out his kids college. Eventually,
Umer agrees that he had gone to visit Hamed, but
his story is totally wild. Hamed had described a rural
camp in a forested area, but Umer says the camps
in rawal Pindi, a two million person city, and Umor's
(14:12):
description well, he says he saw one thousand fighters at
this camp and they're all in a huge underground basement
practicing pole vaulting. Do you know how high a ceiling
has to be in order to poll vault? I'll take ship.
You don't do an abasement for five hundred alex. And
it gets even crazier because, according to Umer, those pole
vaulters are dressed up like Ninja turtles. Umer later explained
(14:36):
that he lifted the story from the movie Teenage Mutant
Ninja Turtles he'd recently seen it on TV. All this
goes on and on. Both men keep spinning stories and
the agents aren't really getting anywhere. At three am, Hamed
starts complaining that his head hurts. He asks to go
(14:57):
home and get some sleep. Kashmir, He telling me Afghanistan
a blame it on whatever you want to blame on,
but what's going to end up happening? To night? He's
ran up the rest of them. Okay, so here are open. No, No,
you're not leaving here tonight now, I mean tomorrow. I'm
going to be here tonight to stay here, and that ever,
you're gonna go to jail. So instead the agents arrest
(15:23):
him and charge him with lending material support to terrorism.
Suddenly he's pacing up to thirty years in prison for
his part. Ms also arrested based on the crazy ninja
turtle statement. He's charged with two counts of lying to
federal agents. The Hyatts arrest was a huge news story. Now,
(15:47):
some media outlets were skeptical. They ran stories highlighting the
pole vaulting and the ninja turtles and the crazy mismatch
between what Hahmed and his dad had said. But other
media bought it all hook line and sinker. They covered
the story as proof that domestic sleeper cells existed. You
throw a word out there, you throw the word terror,
(16:08):
you throw the word martyr, you throw the word gihad
out into public space, and people will believe almost anything
because the fear is so great. There's a federal trial
to get ready for, and the Hyatt family hires lawyers.
But while the lawyer that Umer hires is very experienced.
Hahmed gets a novice. She'd never gone before a jury before.
(16:32):
The plan was for her to imitate whatever Umer's lawyer did,
but that was no plan at all. The cases were
totally different, very different charges, very different confessions. Hahmed needed
his own defense, but he didn't get one, or at
least not a very good one. I mean, I've had
some trial experience in my career, I know my way
(16:52):
around a criminal courtroom. We've had contested hearings in our
own post conviction cases, and I know were about false confessions,
and a lot of other attorneys who practice in this area,
but there is no way that I would ever take
a case like this. This case required a trial lawyer
(17:13):
and one who had worked with a security clearance and
had done cases in federal court against the FBI. Hamed's
lawyer had some of the best false confession experts in
her backyard, including doctor Richard Leo at the University of
San Francisco, but when Hahmed's trial rolled around in two
thousand six, his lawyer didn't call Dr Leo to testify.
(17:36):
Hamed's lawyer also didn't adequately challenge the government's claim that
he carried a jihadi prayer in his wallet. Hamed did
carry a note a tawise, a standard Pakistani Muslim prayer
for good health and protection. It was a gift from
Hamed's uncle after the meningitis, but Hahmed's lawyer didn't clearly
(17:58):
explain that the note had nothing to do with terrorism,
and the jury was left to think the worst. I mean,
it's a travel prayer. You know, Jews travel with eighteen
cents in their front pocket when they go on an airplane.
All right, well, I feel comfortable traveling with you, Steve.
You're gott me covered spiritually. No, I kind of of
elapsed Jews. But people have these prayers with regard to travel,
(18:20):
and that's what my understanding of this tawees was. I mean,
the language that that expert use makes it sound very ominous,
but I'm not sure that that was the right translation.
Despite a pretty weak defense, Hamed's conviction was far from guaranteed.
Even after hearing his confession, the jury still took nine
days to reach a decision, but in the end their
(18:42):
verdict guilty. Later, it came out that there had been
instances of jury misconduct during deliberations. The jury foreman himself
had said that if you put all Muslims in the
same costume, they all look alike. Umar Hyatt's trial, on
the other hand, ended in a mistry no verdict at all.
He ended up pleading guilty to some minor customs violations
(19:05):
and was released but Hammed. On September tenth, two thousand seven,
Hahmed Hyatt was sentenced to twenty four years in prison.
It was one day before the sixth anniversary of the
nine eleven attacks. Federal prison is no picnic for anyone,
(19:25):
especially not a young Musliman who has been convicted of terrorism.
Most inmates are allowed only a limited number of visits,
something like once a week. Hamed was allowed only one
visit per year from his family members. His dad Umor
didn't get permission to see him for more than eight years.
But even while Hamed endured prison, he grew up. For
(19:47):
the first time. He was meeting people of different faiths
and backgrounds, albeit behind bars, and he began to realize
that those things he'd said to impress no seem about
terrorism being cool, we're toxic. When a reporter interviewed him
in Hammed retracted everything he told the reporter it was wrong.
(20:09):
What I said, I totally disagree with myself. I didn't
know much then, I wasn't open minded about a lot
of stuff. So Hammed is in prison, and he's doing
(20:29):
his time, and his case is winding its way through
the system. He's losing at every stage. And then Hamed
gets a new lawyer, a great lawyer by the name
of Dennis Reardon. For those of you who are real
true crime junkies, you might remember Dennis Reardon as one
of the leading lawyers on the team that freed the
West Memphis three. For us, of course, the important thing
(20:51):
about the case is that this was not about just
a bad trial. You can have cases like that where
someone's rights violated. We passionately believe and knew we knew
it was an actual innocence case. So Dennis starts investigating
the time that Hamed spent in Pakistan between two thousand
three and two thousand five. Remember the government said that
(21:14):
during those two years, Hammed went off for three months
to a training camp. And what does Dennis discover alibi witnesses,
eighteen of them. They described in great detail his daily routine.
He was generally almost every day in the native village
except for the time when he took two trips to
raoul Pindi with his mother. So there were witnesses from
(21:38):
ral Pindi, there were witnesses from the village of Babouti.
He had never been out of their sight for more
than at most a couple of days and had never
attended a camp as the government alleged for three to
six months. Person after person comes forward to say that
when Hamed was in Pakistan, he was living with family
(21:58):
and friends. The whole line, there were no three month
unexplained absences. He spent his days playing soccer, not training
for jihad. Hammed was no terrorist, He was totally innocent.
Dennis prepares an appeal based on these alibis. He's granted
a hearing a chance to make the case for Hamed's innocence.
The alibi witnesses testify at the hearing over a live
(22:21):
video feed from Pakistan. Dennis also called that false confession.
Expert to the stand, Doctor Richard Leo and Dr Leo
testified that this confession was useless. It wasn't worth the
tape that it was recorded on, and of course if
you look at the interrogation itself, one of the almost
humorous aspects of it was that he was painfully thin
(22:45):
and hardly looked like someone who had trained for terrorist activities,
and in fact gave this description during this marathon interrogation
where he's trying very hard to please them and give
them answers. Well, I was in the camp. Well do
you ever do arms trading? Well, they gave me a
rifle once, but it was too heavy for me, so
they never gave it to me again, and so what
(23:07):
they had me do was peel vegetables in the kitchen.
The media is following all of this. A PBS Frontline
episode had been made questioning Hamed's conviction. A written piece
in the Intercept did the same thing, and while the
hearing was going on, an episode of the Netflix series
The Confession Tapes also pointed to Hamed's innocence. His case
(23:29):
was attracting supporters, momentum was building fast. So what does
the government do. They offer Hamed his freedom, but he's
got to plead guilty. As a lawyer, you're obligated to
go to client and say the government is still talking
about potentially helping you out if you provide them with
information about Pakistan, And he said, I have nothing to
provide them with. Now we've heard the story way too often.
(23:52):
As soon as the case starts falling apart, the government
offers a deal. It lets prosecutors save face, and it's
pretty hard for any defendant to down. But Hammed, he said,
I've gone through all of that and I am not
going to stand up and say that I did something
I didn't do. And we said, you know, we have
a very strong case, but there's no way we can
(24:14):
guarantee you that it will succeed. And he said, I'm
prepared to see this through. Years ago, he refused to
go to a camp when the scene pressured him. Now
he refuses to say he went to a camp. He
turns down the deal. Instead, he bets that the truth
will set him free. Turns out he was right to
(24:35):
take that bet. You just see before you click on it,
there's an order of the district court, and you know
you're talking about ten seconds of absolute terra. And then
I clicked on it and the conviction is overturned. I'll
admit it. I wept. I really did. On July, after
(24:57):
fourteen years behind bars, Hamed Hyatt's conviction was thrown out
based on his trial attorney's in effectiveness. If Hamed's lawyer
had called those alibi witnesses, the court found, he would
have been acquitted. So where's Hammed today? Laura Hammed was
freed on August and formally exonerated just a few months ago.
(25:21):
On Valentine's Day, the government dismissed all charges against him.
He's the first post nine eleven international terrorism defendant to
be officially cleared of any wrongdoing, and his family knew
that he had been freed, but they didn't know what
was the next step. Family was brought to the Council
(25:42):
on American Islamic Relations, not knowing that he would be there.
And the video of his mother seeing him for the
first time in fourteen years because she was never able
to visit him, and then the same with his father,
(26:03):
ja Ja. It was extraordinary. Everyone wept just watching it.
Since his exoneration, Hammed's been taking life one day at
a time. He's living in California, although not in Lodi,
(26:25):
and he's reconnecting with his family, including nieces and nephews
who were born while he was locked up. But like
all Axonorees, he's struggling to navigate a world that's really
different than the one he was taken from in two
thousand five. When I saw him a few months ago,
I asked him if he was okay. He looked at
me for a long time and simply said, no, I'm not.
(26:50):
Hamed's got a lot of healing to do. But the
good news he's got an enormous number of supporters who
believe in him and Hammed, we're here to say for
you too. Hey, how it is that you? Hey, Laura,
are you doing good? Good? What do you hope to
you today? Not much? Where you stand these daby send
with your family? Yes, um, with my family? Yes? What's
(27:13):
it like to be back with your family after so
many years away? Truly a blessing. They always believed in you.
My family was there, my legal team was there, all
my supporters. That was my hope, my current Where do
you see yourself five years from now? I just want
to go back to school, give my eye school to Phoneline,
then go to college. After that. I hope you'll find
a good job. I see you on social media posting
(27:36):
pictures of you with your nieces and nephews. It's amazing.
You've been out what since August and you're already way
better than me at Instagram. So the checks and balances
in our criminal justice system failed miserably in this case.
(27:58):
And I think it's not because these are bad people
or they were trying to frame Hahmed Hyad and his father.
I think it's because they were operating in the panic
and fear that everybody in this country was living under
in the wake of nine eleven. And in that context,
(28:19):
I think standards for what a good cases sometimes get ignored,
Standards start being cut shorts, and the results is the
taking of more innocent life. Right in this case, fourteen
years from the life of Hamed Hyad. When Hammed was released,
(28:40):
he said, I still think this is a dream. I
wake up and I still think I'm in prison. I'll
never be able to pay back my sisters and brothers,
none of my supporters. I'm your servant until the day
of judgment. That's the story of Hahmed Hyatt. Next week,
(29:02):
join us as we go to South Carolina. Will take
you to a fight for justice that's stuck with Steve
his entire career until then. Thanks for listening to Wrongful Conviction,
False Confessions. Wrongful conviction false Confessions is a production of
lava for Good Podcasts in association with Signal Company Number One.
(29:25):
Special thanks to our executive producer Jason Flom and the
team at Signal Company number one Executive producer Kevin Wardace,
Senior Producer and Pope, and additional production and editing by
Connor Hall. Special thanks to jog Hammer for additional script
editing and for wrangling and writing like a madwoman. Our
music was composed by j Ralph. You can follow me
(29:47):
on Instagram or Twitter at Laura night Rider and you
can follow me on Twitter at s Drizen. For more
information on the show, visit Wrongful Conviction podcast dot com
and be sure to follow the show on Instagram m
at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
on Twitter at wrong Conviction MHM
Hosts And Creators
Lauren Bright Pacheco
Maggie Freleng
Jason Flom
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