Speaker 1: Welcome to wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I
Speaker 1: writer and.
Speaker 2: I'm Steve Drissin.
Speaker 1: In the wake of nine to eleven, keeping America safe
Speaker 1: was everyone's priority. But what happens when an innocent man
Speaker 1: gets accused of terrorism based on a false confession. Today's
Speaker 1: case includes one of the most outlandish confessions I've ever heard,
Speaker 1: a thousand pole vaulting terrorists, all dressed up like ninja turtles.
Speaker 1: It's a story that sounds like the punchline of a
Speaker 1: joke instead of the path to a conviction. But for
Speaker 1: US citizen Hamid Hyatt, the verdict was no joke at all.
Speaker 1: Usually we start each episode by telling you about a crime,
Speaker 1: but in today's story, there was both a crime on
Speaker 1: a scale we've never seen before and no crime at all.
Speaker 1: You see, this case took place right after the horrific
Speaker 1: nine to eleven attacks. Thousands of Americans had died, and
Speaker 1: pressure was building on our government to prevent more attacks.
Speaker 1: Make no mistake, there was a lot of good police
Speaker 1: work done to keep us all safe, but sometimes fear
Speaker 1: started to override good decision making. Some law enforcement efforts
Speaker 1: became driven by panic, and even prejudice, not proof. This
Speaker 1: story is one of the times we got it wrong.
Speaker 1: In two thousand and five, California native and US citizen
Speaker 1: Hamid Hyatt was accused of being part of a homegrown
Speaker 1: terrorist sleeper cell. Years later, the government admitted that no
Speaker 1: such sleeper cell ever existed, but Hamid had falsely confessed.
Speaker 1: He spent more than a decade in prison before being cleared.
Speaker 2: As prosecutors prepare for trial, they review the evidence that
Speaker 2: the FBI agents obtained in the case, and they look
Speaker 2: at the interrogation and tapes, and you have to wonder
Speaker 2: what the prosecutors in this case were thinking when they
Speaker 2: saw these tapes. What were they thinking when the corroboration
Speaker 2: of this case was so thin.
Speaker 1: Hamed is one of the first post nine to eleven
Speaker 1: terrorism defendants to be exonerated, and he probably won't be
Speaker 1: the last. His story is a caution to us all
Speaker 1: when we're talking about our national security, there's nothing more
Speaker 1: important than getting it right. Hamid's story takes place in Lodi, California,
Speaker 1: a medium sized town halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento.
Speaker 1: Lodi's 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 and one
Speaker 1: looking for a suspected terrorist named Nasim Khan. The Nasm
Speaker 1: Khan they've found was a twenty eight year old convenience
Speaker 1: store employee. The FBI quickly realized this guy had nothing
Speaker 1: to do with terrorism. He simply had the same name
Speaker 1: as their suspect. But with the FBI at his door,
Speaker 1: Nasim smelled an opportunity. He gave the agents the biggest
Speaker 1: tip he could conjure up. He claimed to have seen
Speaker 1: i'm in al Zawahiri, one of the most wanted terrorists
Speaker 1: in the world, at a mosque in Lodi, California.
Speaker 2: It's ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous that Osama bin Lan's number two
Speaker 2: person would make it into the United States without detection,
Speaker 2: and of all places, settle in Lode Eye, California.
Speaker 1: The FBI, to its credit, didn't believe Nassem. They figured
Speaker 1: out soon enough that he had a reputation for lying.
Speaker 1: Even his own mother later called Nassim a bag full
Speaker 1: of lies, air and deceit. But this was a month
Speaker 1: after nine to eleven, and the government was desperate to
Speaker 1: recruit informants who could infiltrate Muslim American communities and expose
Speaker 1: any sleeper cells. Somehow, they decided Nasim was their guy.
Speaker 1: Being hired as an informant was a pretty big deal
Speaker 1: for Nassim. 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 and two, Nasim wormed his way into Lowdei's
Speaker 1: Pakistani neighborhoods. He started befriending people looking for any information
Speaker 1: the FBI might consider useful, and pretty soon Nasine began
Speaker 1: focusing on the Hyatt family, especially nineteen year old Hamid. 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, Umer,
Speaker 1: was the local ice cream truck driver.
Speaker 2: The pairing of Nassim and Hahmed was a strange pairing
Speaker 2: from the get go. Nassim was ten years older than
Speaker 2: Hamid and Hamid nineteen or so at the time, acted
Speaker 2: much more immaturely than his age. He had suffered a
Speaker 2: terrible batt of meningitis years earlier, which left him cognitively
Speaker 2: and physically slower.
Speaker 1: As a child, Hamad had split his time between his
Speaker 1: home in the US and his relative's 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, Hamed couldn't believe his luck.
Speaker 2: Nassim was paying attention to Hamid, and very few people
Speaker 2: in the community in lord I paid much attention to Hamid.
Speaker 1: Nassim 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. Hamed was in Nasim Andhmaed became friends, or
Speaker 1: at least so Hamid thought. Over the next year or two,
Speaker 1: Nasim and Hahmed started having hours of phone conversations that
Speaker 1: Nassim was secretly recording. On those calls, Nassim portrayed himself
Speaker 1: as an extremist and told Hamed 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'd been held in a Pakistani jail.
Speaker 1: And when Nasim said that he wanted to go to
Speaker 1: a terrorist training camp, Hamed said that sounded cool. Fast
Speaker 1: forward a year to two thousand and three, twenty one,
Speaker 1: and his parents take him to Pakistan to find a
Speaker 1: bride for Nasim. This trip was a chance to up
Speaker 1: the ante to bully Hamid 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 Hamed into jihadi training,
Speaker 1: but Hamid 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 Nasim 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 and five, when he decides to go
Speaker 1: back to the United States. He boards a plane in Pakistan.
Speaker 2: With his whole family, but the plane gets.
Speaker 1: Diverted to Tokyo because it turns out Hamed is on
Speaker 1: the no fly list. The whole Hyatt family is ushered
Speaker 1: off the plane and the FBI questions them about why
Speaker 1: they were overseas and who they were with. They even
Speaker 1: ask if the men Hamad was hanging out with had
Speaker 1: facial hair. Eventually, the family is allowed to get back
Speaker 1: on the plane and fly to California, but a day
Speaker 1: or two later, the FBI shows up again at the
Speaker 1: Hyatt family home and brings Hamad in to the Sacramento
Speaker 1: office for more questioning. Now, let's step back for a minute.
Speaker 1: By June two thousand and five, there'd been a three
Speaker 1: year multi agency Federal Terrorism Task Force investigation that revolved
Speaker 1: around Nasim Khan and his stories. None of Nassm's claims
Speaker 1: yielded any real information about terrorism. Despite all the money
Speaker 1: he'd been paid, so by mid two thousand and 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.
Speaker 2: Ahmad's interrogation begins on June third, two thousand and five,
Speaker 2: at about eleven thirty in the morning, and it would
Speaker 2: go on for hours and hours before the agents turned
Speaker 2: on the video cameras.
Speaker 1: They start taping at five o'clock in the afternoon. You
Speaker 1: can see skinny little Hamed, very nervous, sitting in a
Speaker 1: chair that's pushed against the wall of a small windowless room.
Speaker 1: He's facing two FBI agents who are staring him down.
Speaker 2: The policy of the FBI at this time was that
Speaker 2: the decision to record interrogations was left in the discretion
Speaker 2: of agents, so it was unusual that they would record
Speaker 2: these interrogations. But thank god they did, because otherwise we
Speaker 2: wouldn't have the record that we do have about how
Speaker 2: at least some of Hamid's interrogation went down.
Speaker 1: As soon as the tape's rolling. The agents accuse Hamid
Speaker 1: of spending between three and six months at a terrorist
Speaker 1: training camp in Pakistan, and then come to lies. First,
Speaker 1: they say he failed a polygraph that he apparently took
Speaker 1: earlier that day. Second, they claim to have satellite photographs
Speaker 1: of a camp, implying Hamid's in those photos. Neither was true,
Speaker 1: and then the agents offer him help. As long as
Speaker 1: he talks over and over and over, they promise that
Speaker 1: they're there to help him. Hamid looks desperate to please
Speaker 1: these guys. He says, he wants to cooperate for my country.
Speaker 3: From our country are doing anything, you know, because you
Speaker 3: know these guys are.
Speaker 1: Hunting our country about well, I appreciate that.
Speaker 2: I mean it's important because you.
Speaker 4: Know every day in the movie sees her. You know,
Speaker 4: our troops Erooklyn.
Speaker 3: They're very hard for you know, making peace in the
Speaker 3: whole world in front.
Speaker 2: While they're making peace, they're making peace for us so
Speaker 2: we can live together, all of us. Yeah, And what
Speaker 2: do they do with these camps.
Speaker 1: What they're doing is to teaching people out to how
Speaker 1: to kill American of course, right, that's what.
Speaker 2: The camps are all about.
Speaker 1: The interrogation goes on for hours into the night, until
Speaker 1: Hamid 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.
Speaker 2: It's laughable.
Speaker 1: They ask him when he'd gone to the camp. At
Speaker 1: first Hamad said it was during the hot season, but
Speaker 1: then he says it was during the cold season. When
Speaker 1: they ask him to describe the camp, Hammad's answer is
Speaker 1: just pathetic. He says the whole place had only four
Speaker 1: weapons in it, a shotgun, two pistols, and a machine gun.
Speaker 2: He said the only weapon that he had handled was
Speaker 2: actually a pistol, and he'd only shot it three or
Speaker 2: four times. What kind of training is that?
Speaker 1: The agents ask comed where the camp was, and he
Speaker 1: keeps switching his story there too. First it was in
Speaker 1: rural Afghanistan, then it was in rural path Pakistan.
Speaker 3: You're all over the map here, and you're not helping
Speaker 3: yourself out it by doing that, you know, Okay, when
Speaker 3: one minute you're saying Northwest Frontier, next minute you're saying cash,
Speaker 3: you're saying where this building was? Which city was it?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I'll say about a court.
Speaker 3: It's not that you will say you know where it is,
Speaker 3: you know where the building is, Tell me where was it?
Speaker 3: About a gourd and the BFP in NWFP.
Speaker 1: And calling Coort and of course remember Hammad had said
Speaker 1: none of this to Nassin Khan, despite years of recorded
Speaker 1: phone calls. Instead, he told Nasim he'd never go to
Speaker 1: a training camp. It's only after this interrogation that Hamad
Speaker 1: starts saying whatever he thinks the agents want to hear,
Speaker 1: and piece by piece, the agents feed him nearly all
Speaker 1: the information in his confession, down to the types of
Speaker 1: buildings he was supposedly going to attack in the United States.
Speaker 3: There are certain kinds of targets that you know, are
Speaker 3: are good targets.
Speaker 5: You know, if you're going.
Speaker 4: To be worth your salt as a gati.
Speaker 5: You know about his targets.
Speaker 3: Buildings and I'll say buildings. What kind of doings you
Speaker 3: take your babys you know, okay, financial buildings are private buildings,
Speaker 3: commercial buildings, think.
Speaker 2: Of the United's commercial artics and those kind of buildings.
Speaker 3: I see, all right, you're not yeah, but I'm not
Speaker 3: sure about the buildings you guys are talking about the
Speaker 3: big one that will say yeah, finance, I'll take What else?
Speaker 2: What else did they tell you about Hoskins was.
Speaker 1: Maybe Hammed's confession is not very believable, so the FBI
Speaker 1: needs corroboration. While those agents are questioning Hamid, other agents
Speaker 1: bring in his dad, Umer, the ice cream truck driver,
Speaker 1: and start questioning him too. They tell Umer that Hamed
Speaker 1: admitted going to a training camp in Pakistan, and they
Speaker 1: start pressuring Umer to say he also went to visit Hamed,
Speaker 1: just like a parent would check out his kids college. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Umer agrees that he had gone to visit Homed, but
Speaker 1: his story is totally wild. Hamid had described a rural
Speaker 1: camp in a forested area, but Umer says the camp's
Speaker 1: in rawal Pindi, a two million persons city. And Umer'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.
Speaker 2: Do you know how high a ceiling has to be
Speaker 2: in order.
Speaker 6: To pull vault?
Speaker 1: I'll take shit you don't do in a basement for
Speaker 1: five hundred alex. And it gets even crazier because, according
Speaker 1: to Umer, those pole vaulters are dressed up like Ninja turtles.
Speaker 1: Umer later explained that he lifted this story from the
Speaker 1: movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles he'd recently seen it on TV.
Speaker 1: All this goes on and on. Both men keep spinning
Speaker 1: stories and the agents aren't really getting anywhere. At three am,
Speaker 1: Hamid starts complaining that his head hurts. He asks to
Speaker 1: go home and gets in sleep.
Speaker 3: You tell me Kashmir, You telling me Afghanistan, Northwest.
Speaker 1: Blame it on whatever you want to blame it on.
Speaker 2: But what's going up happening tonight? He ran up the
Speaker 2: rest of you.
Speaker 3: Okay, so I'm here tour over.
Speaker 2: No, No, you're not leaving here tonight now.
Speaker 3: No, I mean tom, I'm going to be here tonight,
Speaker 3: staying here in that everything you're going, you're a jail
Speaker 3: and to Jeda. So I'm going to get place to
Speaker 3: sweep forward there like that.
Speaker 1: Instead, the agents arrest him and charge him with lending
Speaker 1: material support to terrorism. Suddenly, he's facing up to thirty
Speaker 1: years in prison for his part. Umer's also arrested based
Speaker 1: on the crazy ninja turtle statement. He's charged with two
Speaker 1: counts of lying to federal agents. The Hyatt's arrest was
Speaker 1: a huge news story. Now, some media outlets were skeptical.
Speaker 1: They ran stories highlighting the pole vaulting and the ninja
Speaker 1: turtles and the crazy mismatch between what Hammad and his
Speaker 1: dad had said, but other media bought it all hook
Speaker 1: line and sinker. They covered the story as proof that
Speaker 1: domestic sleeper cells existed.
Speaker 2: You throw a word out there, you throw the word terror,
Speaker 2: you throw the word martyr, you throw the word gihad
Speaker 2: out into public space, and people will believe almost anything
Speaker 2: because the fear is so great.
Speaker 1: There's a federal trial to get ready for, and the
Speaker 1: Hyatt family hires lawyers. But while the lawyer that Umer
Speaker 1: hires is very experienced, Hamed gets a novice. She'd never
Speaker 1: gone before a jury before. The plan was for her
Speaker 1: to imitate whatever Umer's lawyer did, but that was no
Speaker 1: plan at all. The cases were totally different, very different charges,
Speaker 1: very different confessions. Hamid needed his own defense, but he
Speaker 1: didn't get one, or at least not a very good one.
Speaker 2: I mean, I've had some trial experience in my career.
Speaker 2: I know my way around a criminal courtroom. We've had
Speaker 2: contested hearings in our own post conviction cases, and I
Speaker 2: know more more about false confessions than a lot of
Speaker 2: other attorneys who practice in this area. But there is
Speaker 2: no way that I would ever take a case like this.
Speaker 2: This case required a trial lawyer, and one who had
Speaker 2: worked with a security clearance and had done cases in
Speaker 2: federal court against the FBI.
Speaker 1: Hammid's lawyer had some of the best false confession experts
Speaker 1: in her backyard, including doctor Richard Leo at the University
Speaker 1: of San Francisco, but when Hahmed's trial rolled around in
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, his lawyer didn't call doctor Leo
Speaker 1: to testify. Hamed's lawyer also didn't adequately challenge the government's
Speaker 1: claim that he carried a jihadi prayer in his wallet.
Speaker 1: Hamed did carry a note a tauiz, a standard Pakistani
Speaker 1: Muslim prayer for good health and protection. It was a
Speaker 1: gift from Hammed's uncle after the meningitis, but Hamid's lawyer
Speaker 1: didn't clearly explain that the note had nothing to do
Speaker 1: with terrorism, and the jury was left to think the worst.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's a travel prayer. You know, Jews travel
Speaker 2: with eighteen cents in their front pocket when they go
Speaker 2: on an airplane.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I feel comfortable traveling with you, Steve.
Speaker 1: You're gott me covered spiritually.
Speaker 2: No, I kind of elapsed jewe okay, But people have
Speaker 2: these prayers with regard to travel, and that's what my
Speaker 2: understanding of this tawiz was. Yeah, I mean the language
Speaker 2: that that expert use makes it sound very ominous, but
Speaker 2: I'm not sure that was the right translation.
Speaker 1: Despite a pretty weak defense, Hamid'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 they're
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. Umer Hyatt's trial, on
Speaker 1: the other hand, ended in a mistrial, no verdict at all.
Speaker 1: He ended up pleading guilty to some minor customs violations
Speaker 1: and was released but Hamid. On September tenth, two thousand
Speaker 1: and seven, Hamed Hyatt was sentenced to twenty four years
Speaker 1: in prison. It was one day before the sixth anniversary
Speaker 1: of the nine to eleven attacks. Federal prison is no
Speaker 1: picnic for anyone, especially not a young muslinman who's been
Speaker 1: convicted of terrorism. Most inmates are allowed only a limited
Speaker 1: number of visits, something like once a week. Hamed was
Speaker 1: allowed only one visit per year from his family members.
Speaker 1: His dad, Umer didn't get permission to see him for
Speaker 1: more than eight years. But even while Hamat endured prison,
Speaker 1: he grew up for the first time. He was meeting
Speaker 1: people of different faiths and backgrounds, albeit behind bars, and
Speaker 1: he began to realize that those things he'd said to
Speaker 1: impress Naseem about terrorism being cool or toxic. When a
Speaker 1: reporter interviewed him in twenty sixteen, Hamad retracted everything. He
Speaker 1: told the reporter. It was wrong what I said. I
Speaker 1: totally disagree with myself. I didn't know much then. I
Speaker 1: wasn't open minded about a lot of stuff.
Speaker 2: So Hamid is in prison and he's doing his time,
Speaker 2: and his case is winding its way through the system.
Speaker 2: He's losing at every stage. And then Hamid gets a new.
Speaker 1: Lawyer, a great lawyer by the name of Dennis Riardon.
Speaker 1: For those of you who are real true crime junkies,
Speaker 1: you might remember Dennis Riardon as one of the leading
Speaker 1: lawyers on the team that freed the West Memphis three.
Speaker 6: For us, of course, the important thing about the case
Speaker 6: is that this was not about just a bad trial.
Speaker 6: You can have cases like that where someone's rights are violated.
Speaker 6: We passionately believed and knew, we knew it was an
Speaker 6: actual innocence case.
Speaker 1: So Dennis starts investigating the time that Hamid spent in
Speaker 1: Pakistan between two thousand and three and two thousand and five. Remember,
Speaker 1: the government said that during those two years, Hamad went
Speaker 1: off for three months to a training camp. And what
Speaker 1: does Dennis discover alibi witnesses, eighteen of them.
Speaker 6: They described in great detail his daily routine. He was
Speaker 6: generally almost every day in the native village, except for
Speaker 6: the time when he took two trips to ral Pindi
Speaker 6: with his mother. So there were witnesses from raal Pindi,
Speaker 6: there were witnesses from the village of Babudi. He had
Speaker 6: never been out of their site for more than at
Speaker 6: most a couple of days, and had never attended at
Speaker 6: camp as the government alleged, for three to six months.
Speaker 1: Person after person comes forward to say that when Hahmad
Speaker 1: was in Pakistan, he was living with family and friends
Speaker 1: the whole time. There were no three month unexplained absences.
Speaker 1: He spent his days playing soccer, not training for jihad.
Speaker 2: Haman 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 Hamad's innocence.
Speaker 1: The alibi witnesses testify at the hearing over a live
Speaker 1: video feed from Pakistan. Dennis also calls that false confession
Speaker 1: expert to the stand doctor Richard Leo.
Speaker 2: And doctor Leo testified that this confession was useless. It
Speaker 2: wasn't worth the tape that it was recorded on.
Speaker 6: And of course, if you look at the interrogation itself,
Speaker 6: one of the almost humorous aspects of it was that
Speaker 6: he was painfully thin and hardly looked like someone who
Speaker 6: had trained for terrorist activities, and in fact gave this
Speaker 6: description during this marathon interrogation where he's trying very hard
Speaker 6: to please them and give them answers. Well, I was
Speaker 6: in the camp. Did you ever do arms trading? Well,
Speaker 6: they gave me a rifle once, but it was too
Speaker 6: heavy for me, so they never gave it to me again,
Speaker 6: and so what they had me do was peel vegetables
Speaker 6: in the kitchen.
Speaker 1: The media is following all of this. A PBS Frontline
Speaker 1: episode had been made questioning Hamid'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 Hammid's innocence. His case
Speaker 1: was attracting supporters, momentum was building fast. So what does
Speaker 1: the government do. They offer Hamid his freedom, but he's
Speaker 1: got to plead guilty.
Speaker 6: As a lawyer, you're obligated to go to client and
Speaker 6: say the government is still talking about potentially helping you
Speaker 6: out if you provide them with information about Pakistan. And
Speaker 6: he said, I have nothing to provide them with.
Speaker 1: Now we've heard the story way too often. As soon
Speaker 1: as a case starts falling apart, the government offers a deal.
Speaker 1: It lets prosecutors save face, and it's pretty hard for
Speaker 1: any defendant to turn down.
Speaker 6: But Hamat, he said, I've gone through all of that
Speaker 6: and I am not going to stand up and say
Speaker 6: that I did something I didn't do. And we said,
Speaker 6: you know, we have a very strong case, but there's
Speaker 6: no way we can guarantee you that it will succeed.
Speaker 6: And he said, I'm prepared to see this through.
Speaker 1: Years ago, he refused to go to a camp when
Speaker 1: a scene pressured him. Now he refuses to say he
Speaker 1: went to a camp. He turns down the deal. Instead,
Speaker 1: he bets that the truth will set him free.
Speaker 2: Turns out he was right to take that bet.
Speaker 6: You just see before you click on it, there's an
Speaker 6: order of the District Court, and you know you're talking
Speaker 6: about ten seconds of absolute terror. And then I clicked
Speaker 6: on it and the conviction is overturned. I'll admit it.
Speaker 2: I wept.
Speaker 6: I really did.
Speaker 1: On July thirtieth, twenty nineteen, after fourteen years behind bars,
Speaker 1: hamit Hyatt's conviction was thrown out based on his trial
Speaker 1: attorney's ineffectiveness. If Hamid's lawyer had called those alibi witnesses,
Speaker 1: the court found, he would have been acquitted.
Speaker 2: So where's Hamid today?
Speaker 1: Laura Hamid was freed on August ninth, twenty nineteen, and
Speaker 1: formally exonerated just a few months ago. On Valentine's Day
Speaker 1: twenty twenty, the government dismissed all charges against him. He's
Speaker 1: the first post nine to eleven international terrorism defendant to
Speaker 1: be officially cleared of any.
Speaker 6: Wrongdoing, and his family knew that he had been freed,
Speaker 6: but they didn't know what was the next step. Family
Speaker 6: was brought to the Council on American Islamic Relations, not
Speaker 6: knowing that he would be there, and the video of
Speaker 6: his mother seeing him for the first time in fourteen
Speaker 6: years because she was never able to visit him, and
Speaker 6: then the same with his father, Jeremah Jeremah. It was extraordinary.
Speaker 6: Everyone wept just watching it.
Speaker 1: Since his exoneration, Hamid'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 exoneries, 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 and 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 Hamid, we're here to say for
Speaker 1: you too, Hey, Hamed?
Speaker 5: Is that you?
Speaker 6: Hey?
Speaker 4: Laura? Are you doing good?
Speaker 5: Good?
Speaker 2: What are you up to today?
Speaker 4: Not much? Where do you stand these days?
Speaker 5: You sand with your family?
Speaker 4: Yes, I'm with my family.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 5: What's it like to be back with your family after
Speaker 5: so many years away.
Speaker 4: Truly a blessing.
Speaker 5: They always believed in you.
Speaker 4: My family was there, my legal team was there, almost supported.
Speaker 4: That was my hope, my star.
Speaker 1: Where do you see yourself five years from now?
Speaker 4: I just want to go back to school and get
Speaker 4: my school the Phoneline didn't go to college after that.
Speaker 4: I hope you'll find a good job.
Speaker 1: I see you on social media posting pictures of you
Speaker 1: with your nieces and nephews.
Speaker 5: It's amazing. You've been out what since August, and you're
Speaker 5: already way better than me at Instagram. So the checks.
Speaker 2: And balances in our criminal justice system failed miserably in
Speaker 2: this case. And I think it's not because these are
Speaker 2: bad people or they were trying to frame Hamid Hyad
Speaker 2: and his father. I think it's because they were operating
Speaker 2: in the panic and fear that everybody in this country
Speaker 2: was living under in the wake of nine to eleven,
Speaker 2: And in that context, I think standards for what a
Speaker 2: good case is sometimes get.
Speaker 1: Ignored, Standards start being cut short, and the results is
Speaker 1: the taking of more innocent life. Right in this case,
Speaker 1: fourteen years from the life of Hammed Hyad. When Hamad
Speaker 1: was released, he said I still think this is a dream.
Speaker 1: I wake up and I still think I'm in prison.
Speaker 1: I'll 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 Hamed Hyatt. Next week,
Speaker 1: join us as we go to South Carolina. We'll take
Speaker 1: you to a fight for justice that's stuck with Steve
Speaker 1: his entire career till 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 Flamm and the
Speaker 1: team at Signal Company Number one. Executive producer Kevin wardis
Speaker 1: Senior producer and Pope, and additional production and editing by
Speaker 1: Connor Hall. Special thanks to Jogi Hammer for additional script
Speaker 1: editing and for wrangling and writing like a mad woman.
Speaker 1: Our music was composed by Jay Ralph. You can follow
Speaker 1: me on Instagram or Twitter at Laura Nywriter.
Speaker 2: And you can follow me on Twitter at s Drizzen.
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit Wrongfulconviction podcast dot
Speaker 1: com and be sure to follow the show on Instagram
Speaker 1: at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast, and
Speaker 1: on Twitter at wrong Conviction