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