WEBVTT - #123 Wrongful Conviction: False Confessions - Hamid Hayat 0:00:01.600 --> 0:00:04.640 Welcome to wrongful Conviction, False Confessions. I'm Laura and I 0:00:04.720 --> 0:00:05.440 writer and. 0:00:05.360 --> 0:00:06.320 I'm Steve Drissin. 0:00:07.280 --> 0:00:09.720 In the wake of nine to eleven, keeping America safe 0:00:09.880 --> 0:00:13.840 was everyone's priority. But what happens when an innocent man 0:00:13.920 --> 0:00:18.120 gets accused of terrorism based on a false confession. Today's 0:00:18.160 --> 0:00:21.920 case includes one of the most outlandish confessions I've ever heard, 0:00:22.520 --> 0:00:27.600 a thousand pole vaulting terrorists, all dressed up like ninja turtles. 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:30.040 It's a story that sounds like the punchline of a 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:33.120 joke instead of the path to a conviction. But for 0:00:33.400 --> 0:00:47.000 US citizen Hamid Hyatt, the verdict was no joke at all. 0:00:47.159 --> 0:00:49.960 Usually we start each episode by telling you about a crime, 0:00:50.720 --> 0:00:53.080 but in today's story, there was both a crime on 0:00:53.120 --> 0:00:57.200 a scale we've never seen before and no crime at all. 0:00:57.280 --> 0:00:59.960 You see, this case took place right after the horrific 0:01:00.280 --> 0:01:04.600 nine to eleven attacks. Thousands of Americans had died, and 0:01:04.680 --> 0:01:07.880 pressure was building on our government to prevent more attacks. 0:01:08.640 --> 0:01:11.040 Make no mistake, there was a lot of good police 0:01:11.040 --> 0:01:14.880 work done to keep us all safe, but sometimes fear 0:01:15.120 --> 0:01:19.720 started to override good decision making. Some law enforcement efforts 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:25.480 became driven by panic, and even prejudice, not proof. This 0:01:25.600 --> 0:01:27.639 story is one of the times we got it wrong. 0:01:28.400 --> 0:01:31.800 In two thousand and five, California native and US citizen 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:35.920 Hamid Hyatt was accused of being part of a homegrown 0:01:36.160 --> 0:01:40.840 terrorist sleeper cell. Years later, the government admitted that no 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.679 such sleeper cell ever existed, but Hamid had falsely confessed. 0:01:46.280 --> 0:01:49.760 He spent more than a decade in prison before being cleared. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:54.120 As prosecutors prepare for trial, they review the evidence that 0:01:54.840 --> 0:01:58.840 the FBI agents obtained in the case, and they look 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:02.600 at the interrogation and tapes, and you have to wonder 0:02:03.400 --> 0:02:06.680 what the prosecutors in this case were thinking when they 0:02:06.760 --> 0:02:11.400 saw these tapes. What were they thinking when the corroboration 0:02:11.639 --> 0:02:13.240 of this case was so thin. 0:02:13.760 --> 0:02:16.160 Hamed is one of the first post nine to eleven 0:02:16.320 --> 0:02:19.880 terrorism defendants to be exonerated, and he probably won't be 0:02:19.880 --> 0:02:23.440 the last. His story is a caution to us all 0:02:24.040 --> 0:02:27.839 when we're talking about our national security, there's nothing more 0:02:27.880 --> 0:02:36.200 important than getting it right. Hamid's story takes place in Lodi, California, 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:40.239 a medium sized town halfway between San Francisco and Sacramento. 0:02:41.240 --> 0:02:43.880 Lodi's downtown looks like the set of an old western, 0:02:44.160 --> 0:02:47.520 complete with a train depot from gold Rush days. But 0:02:47.600 --> 0:02:50.480 if you go south a mile, you'll find a large 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:55.440 Pakistani American community where families wear traditional clothing and center 0:02:55.480 --> 0:02:59.520 their lives around the local mosque. We'll get to Lodi 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:03.360 in a minute, but our story starts in Oregon. That's 0:03:03.400 --> 0:03:07.119 where FBI agents traveled in October two thousand and one 0:03:07.639 --> 0:03:12.800 looking for a suspected terrorist named Nasim Khan. The Nasm 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:16.040 Khan they've found was a twenty eight year old convenience 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.400 store employee. The FBI quickly realized this guy had nothing 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.200 to do with terrorism. He simply had the same name 0:03:23.240 --> 0:03:26.520 as their suspect. But with the FBI at his door, 0:03:26.919 --> 0:03:31.600 Nasim smelled an opportunity. He gave the agents the biggest 0:03:31.639 --> 0:03:34.520 tip he could conjure up. He claimed to have seen 0:03:34.639 --> 0:03:38.000 i'm in al Zawahiri, one of the most wanted terrorists 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:41.920 in the world, at a mosque in Lodi, California. 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:46.240 It's ludicrous, absolutely ludicrous that Osama bin Lan's number two 0:03:46.320 --> 0:03:50.040 person would make it into the United States without detection, 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:54.320 and of all places, settle in Lode Eye, California. 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:58.360 The FBI, to its credit, didn't believe Nassem. They figured 0:03:58.360 --> 0:04:01.200 out soon enough that he had a reputation for lying. 0:04:01.880 --> 0:04:05.360 Even his own mother later called Nassim a bag full 0:04:05.400 --> 0:04:09.480 of lies, air and deceit. But this was a month 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.440 after nine to eleven, and the government was desperate to 0:04:12.480 --> 0:04:16.840 recruit informants who could infiltrate Muslim American communities and expose 0:04:16.880 --> 0:04:21.520 any sleeper cells. Somehow, they decided Nasim was their guy. 0:04:22.800 --> 0:04:25.520 Being hired as an informant was a pretty big deal 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:29.000 for Nassim. He went from working in a convenience store 0:04:29.160 --> 0:04:33.920 to getting a cool FBI nickname Wildcat. He earned hundreds 0:04:33.920 --> 0:04:37.159 of thousands of dollars on the US government payroll. The 0:04:37.200 --> 0:04:41.160 FEDS even paid for his car washes. In exchange, they 0:04:41.200 --> 0:04:45.880 asked him to target the Lodi, California community. By early 0:04:45.920 --> 0:04:48.919 two thousand and two, Nasim wormed his way into Lowdei's 0:04:48.960 --> 0:04:53.760 Pakistani neighborhoods. He started befriending people looking for any information 0:04:53.880 --> 0:04:57.799 the FBI might consider useful, and pretty soon Nasine began 0:04:57.880 --> 0:05:03.680 focusing on the Hyatt family, especially nineteen year old Hamid. Now, 0:05:03.760 --> 0:05:06.520 the Hyatt family was well known in Lodi. They had 0:05:06.560 --> 0:05:12.400 no history of political involvement or extremism whatsoever. Hahmed's dad, Umer, 0:05:12.920 --> 0:05:14.720 was the local ice cream truck driver. 0:05:15.320 --> 0:05:18.719 The pairing of Nassim and Hahmed was a strange pairing 0:05:18.800 --> 0:05:22.560 from the get go. Nassim was ten years older than 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:27.599 Hamid and Hamid nineteen or so at the time, acted 0:05:27.720 --> 0:05:31.400 much more immaturely than his age. He had suffered a 0:05:31.680 --> 0:05:36.040 terrible batt of meningitis years earlier, which left him cognitively 0:05:36.240 --> 0:05:37.600 and physically slower. 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:40.760 As a child, Hamad had split his time between his 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.760 home in the US and his relative's home in Pakistan. 0:05:44.400 --> 0:05:47.440 Because of all the travel, he'd only finished elementary school, 0:05:47.800 --> 0:05:50.520 and he didn't have many friends in the States. So 0:05:50.600 --> 0:05:55.039 when Nassim, the informant, befriended him, Hamed couldn't believe his luck. 0:05:55.680 --> 0:05:59.679 Nassim was paying attention to Hamid, and very few people 0:06:00.000 --> 0:06:03.560 in the community in lord I paid much attention to Hamid. 0:06:04.120 --> 0:06:07.400 Nassim was older, he had a fancy car, and apparently 0:06:07.520 --> 0:06:10.360 endless money. This is the guy who wanted to chat 0:06:10.440 --> 0:06:15.600 up Hamed. Hamed was in Nasim Andhmaed became friends, or 0:06:15.640 --> 0:06:18.960 at least so Hamid thought. Over the next year or two, 0:06:19.279 --> 0:06:23.200 Nasim and Hahmed started having hours of phone conversations that 0:06:23.320 --> 0:06:28.200 Nassim was secretly recording. On those calls, Nassim portrayed himself 0:06:28.240 --> 0:06:31.440 as an extremist and told Hamed he'd been involved in 0:06:31.480 --> 0:06:36.679 jihadi activities for years. Pretty Soon, hapless Hamed started trying 0:06:36.720 --> 0:06:40.120 to impress Nasim by making up fake stories about his 0:06:40.120 --> 0:06:44.640 own exploits. Once Hamed said he participated in a Taliban attack, 0:06:45.320 --> 0:06:48.279 another time he claimed he'd been held in a Pakistani jail. 0:06:49.240 --> 0:06:51.240 And when Nasim said that he wanted to go to 0:06:51.279 --> 0:06:56.840 a terrorist training camp, Hamed said that sounded cool. Fast 0:06:56.880 --> 0:07:00.680 forward a year to two thousand and three, twenty one, 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:03.479 and his parents take him to Pakistan to find a 0:07:03.480 --> 0:07:07.600 bride for Nasim. This trip was a chance to up 0:07:07.640 --> 0:07:11.080 the ante to bully Hamid into actually going to a 0:07:11.160 --> 0:07:14.680 terrorist training camp. He starts telling Hamed that he's going 0:07:14.720 --> 0:07:18.920 to come to Pakistan himself and force Hamed into jihadi training, 0:07:19.680 --> 0:07:24.120 but Hamid refuses. He fends Nasim off with one excuse 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.320 after another. It's too hot to go to a training camp, 0:07:27.560 --> 0:07:30.280 it's too difficult, I need to stay with my sick mother. 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:35.880 It's pretty obvious Hamed has zero interest in becoming a terrorist. Finally, 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.240 he straight out tells Nasim he's never going to a camp. 0:07:40.000 --> 0:07:43.240 It was their last phone call. Hamed gets married in 0:07:43.240 --> 0:07:46.200 Pakistan and ends up staying there for two years until 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:48.880 June two thousand and five, when he decides to go 0:07:49.040 --> 0:07:53.120 back to the United States. He boards a plane in Pakistan. 0:07:52.680 --> 0:07:54.440 With his whole family, but the plane gets. 0:07:54.320 --> 0:07:57.600 Diverted to Tokyo because it turns out Hamed is on 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.720 the no fly list. The whole Hyatt family is ushered 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:04.600 off the plane and the FBI questions them about why 0:08:04.640 --> 0:08:07.680 they were overseas and who they were with. They even 0:08:07.720 --> 0:08:10.200 ask if the men Hamad was hanging out with had 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:13.760 facial hair. Eventually, the family is allowed to get back 0:08:13.800 --> 0:08:16.960 on the plane and fly to California, but a day 0:08:17.080 --> 0:08:19.760 or two later, the FBI shows up again at the 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.360 Hyatt family home and brings Hamad in to the Sacramento 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:28.800 office for more questioning. Now, let's step back for a minute. 0:08:29.160 --> 0:08:31.400 By June two thousand and five, there'd been a three 0:08:31.520 --> 0:08:37.720 year multi agency Federal Terrorism Task Force investigation that revolved 0:08:37.720 --> 0:08:41.959 around Nasim Khan and his stories. None of Nassm's claims 0:08:42.040 --> 0:08:45.840 yielded any real information about terrorism. Despite all the money 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:48.800 he'd been paid, so by mid two thousand and five, 0:08:49.200 --> 0:08:52.679 the FBI was feeling pressure to show results in the 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:56.160 worst way, and they got results from the Hyatt family 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.760 in the worst way. 0:09:07.720 --> 0:09:11.680 Ahmad's interrogation begins on June third, two thousand and five, 0:09:12.280 --> 0:09:15.480 at about eleven thirty in the morning, and it would 0:09:15.480 --> 0:09:19.800 go on for hours and hours before the agents turned 0:09:19.840 --> 0:09:21.240 on the video cameras. 0:09:21.880 --> 0:09:24.960 They start taping at five o'clock in the afternoon. You 0:09:25.000 --> 0:09:29.080 can see skinny little Hamed, very nervous, sitting in a 0:09:29.160 --> 0:09:33.480 chair that's pushed against the wall of a small windowless room. 0:09:34.120 --> 0:09:37.120 He's facing two FBI agents who are staring him down. 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:41.440 The policy of the FBI at this time was that 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:45.479 the decision to record interrogations was left in the discretion 0:09:45.920 --> 0:09:50.080 of agents, so it was unusual that they would record 0:09:50.160 --> 0:09:55.400 these interrogations. But thank god they did, because otherwise we 0:09:55.440 --> 0:09:58.960 wouldn't have the record that we do have about how 0:09:59.080 --> 0:10:02.680 at least some of Hamid's interrogation went down. 0:10:03.320 --> 0:10:06.440 As soon as the tape's rolling. The agents accuse Hamid 0:10:06.800 --> 0:10:10.520 of spending between three and six months at a terrorist 0:10:10.559 --> 0:10:15.880 training camp in Pakistan, and then come to lies. First, 0:10:16.040 --> 0:10:18.839 they say he failed a polygraph that he apparently took 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:23.840 earlier that day. Second, they claim to have satellite photographs 0:10:23.880 --> 0:10:29.520 of a camp, implying Hamid's in those photos. Neither was true, 0:10:29.800 --> 0:10:32.760 and then the agents offer him help. As long as 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:37.440 he talks over and over and over, they promise that 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:40.800 they're there to help him. Hamid looks desperate to please 0:10:40.840 --> 0:10:45.320 these guys. He says, he wants to cooperate for my country. 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.520 From our country are doing anything, you know, because you 0:10:47.559 --> 0:10:48.480 know these guys are. 0:10:48.360 --> 0:10:51.360 Hunting our country about well, I appreciate that. 0:10:51.480 --> 0:10:53.320 I mean it's important because you. 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.720 Know every day in the movie sees her. You know, 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:56.679 our troops Erooklyn. 0:10:56.679 --> 0:10:58.920 They're very hard for you know, making peace in the 0:10:58.960 --> 0:10:59.920 whole world in front. 0:11:00.400 --> 0:11:02.400 While they're making peace, they're making peace for us so 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.560 we can live together, all of us. Yeah, And what 0:11:04.600 --> 0:11:05.600 do they do with these camps. 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:07.840 What they're doing is to teaching people out to how 0:11:07.840 --> 0:11:10.000 to kill American of course, right, that's what. 0:11:09.880 --> 0:11:11.160 The camps are all about. 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.720 The interrogation goes on for hours into the night, until 0:11:14.760 --> 0:11:18.800 Hamid starts breaking. He tells the agents he did go 0:11:18.880 --> 0:11:21.959 to a camp in Pakistan for several months, but his 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:23.720 story makes no sense. 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:24.679 It's laughable. 0:11:24.840 --> 0:11:27.360 They ask him when he'd gone to the camp. At 0:11:27.360 --> 0:11:30.120 first Hamad said it was during the hot season, but 0:11:30.160 --> 0:11:32.920 then he says it was during the cold season. When 0:11:32.920 --> 0:11:35.680 they ask him to describe the camp, Hammad's answer is 0:11:35.800 --> 0:11:39.280 just pathetic. He says the whole place had only four 0:11:39.320 --> 0:11:43.160 weapons in it, a shotgun, two pistols, and a machine gun. 0:11:43.360 --> 0:11:45.520 He said the only weapon that he had handled was 0:11:45.559 --> 0:11:48.760 actually a pistol, and he'd only shot it three or 0:11:48.800 --> 0:11:51.280 four times. What kind of training is that? 0:11:51.640 --> 0:11:54.280 The agents ask comed where the camp was, and he 0:11:54.360 --> 0:11:57.400 keeps switching his story there too. First it was in 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:00.480 rural Afghanistan, then it was in rural path Pakistan. 0:12:00.760 --> 0:12:03.400 You're all over the map here, and you're not helping 0:12:03.440 --> 0:12:05.880 yourself out it by doing that, you know, Okay, when 0:12:05.880 --> 0:12:08.600 one minute you're saying Northwest Frontier, next minute you're saying cash, 0:12:09.080 --> 0:12:11.520 you're saying where this building was? Which city was it? 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:13.800 Yes, yeah, I'll say about a court. 0:12:14.280 --> 0:12:16.640 It's not that you will say you know where it is, 0:12:17.000 --> 0:12:19.640 you know where the building is, Tell me where was it? 0:12:20.040 --> 0:12:23.280 About a gourd and the BFP in NWFP. 0:12:22.840 --> 0:12:26.400 And calling Coort and of course remember Hammad had said 0:12:26.480 --> 0:12:30.080 none of this to Nassin Khan, despite years of recorded 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:34.080 phone calls. Instead, he told Nasim he'd never go to 0:12:34.120 --> 0:12:38.559 a training camp. It's only after this interrogation that Hamad 0:12:38.559 --> 0:12:41.280 starts saying whatever he thinks the agents want to hear, 0:12:42.080 --> 0:12:45.640 and piece by piece, the agents feed him nearly all 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.880 the information in his confession, down to the types of 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:52.000 buildings he was supposedly going to attack in the United States. 0:12:52.240 --> 0:12:54.240 There are certain kinds of targets that you know, are 0:12:54.280 --> 0:12:55.120 are good targets. 0:12:55.520 --> 0:12:56.280 You know, if you're going. 0:12:56.200 --> 0:12:58.480 To be worth your salt as a gati. 0:12:58.320 --> 0:12:59.520 You know about his targets. 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:04.960 Buildings and I'll say buildings. What kind of doings you 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:10.679 take your babys you know, okay, financial buildings are private buildings, 0:13:10.679 --> 0:13:12.120 commercial buildings, think. 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:15.640 Of the United's commercial artics and those kind of buildings. 0:13:15.760 --> 0:13:20.000 I see, all right, you're not yeah, but I'm not 0:13:20.040 --> 0:13:22.320 sure about the buildings you guys are talking about the 0:13:22.360 --> 0:13:27.120 big one that will say yeah, finance, I'll take What else? 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.440 What else did they tell you about Hoskins was. 0:13:29.480 --> 0:13:33.440 Maybe Hammed's confession is not very believable, so the FBI 0:13:33.600 --> 0:13:38.760 needs corroboration. While those agents are questioning Hamid, other agents 0:13:38.800 --> 0:13:42.079 bring in his dad, Umer, the ice cream truck driver, 0:13:42.480 --> 0:13:46.120 and start questioning him too. They tell Umer that Hamed 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.160 admitted going to a training camp in Pakistan, and they 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.920 start pressuring Umer to say he also went to visit Hamed, 0:13:53.400 --> 0:13:57.400 just like a parent would check out his kids college. Eventually, 0:13:57.520 --> 0:14:00.600 Umer agrees that he had gone to visit Homed, but 0:14:00.760 --> 0:14:05.079 his story is totally wild. Hamid had described a rural 0:14:05.120 --> 0:14:08.040 camp in a forested area, but Umer says the camp's 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:12.280 in rawal Pindi, a two million persons city. And Umer's 0:14:12.280 --> 0:14:16.400 description well, he says he saw one thousand fighters at 0:14:16.400 --> 0:14:19.520 this camp and they're all in a huge underground basement 0:14:19.800 --> 0:14:21.320 practicing pole vaulting. 0:14:21.520 --> 0:14:23.800 Do you know how high a ceiling has to be 0:14:23.920 --> 0:14:24.600 in order. 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:25.120 To pull vault? 0:14:25.280 --> 0:14:27.000 I'll take shit you don't do in a basement for 0:14:27.040 --> 0:14:30.760 five hundred alex. And it gets even crazier because, according 0:14:30.800 --> 0:14:35.000 to Umer, those pole vaulters are dressed up like Ninja turtles. 0:14:35.520 --> 0:14:38.400 Umer later explained that he lifted this story from the 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:42.240 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles he'd recently seen it on TV. 0:14:46.160 --> 0:14:49.640 All this goes on and on. Both men keep spinning 0:14:49.680 --> 0:14:53.960 stories and the agents aren't really getting anywhere. At three am, 0:14:54.040 --> 0:14:57.720 Hamid starts complaining that his head hurts. He asks to 0:14:57.760 --> 0:14:59.200 go home and gets in sleep. 0:14:59.400 --> 0:15:02.000 You tell me Kashmir, You telling me Afghanistan, Northwest. 0:15:03.760 --> 0:15:05.560 Blame it on whatever you want to blame it on. 0:15:05.640 --> 0:15:07.600 But what's going up happening tonight? He ran up the 0:15:07.640 --> 0:15:08.000 rest of you. 0:15:08.360 --> 0:15:10.440 Okay, so I'm here tour over. 0:15:11.120 --> 0:15:12.960 No, No, you're not leaving here tonight now. 0:15:13.280 --> 0:15:15.720 No, I mean tom, I'm going to be here tonight, 0:15:15.960 --> 0:15:18.640 staying here in that everything you're going, you're a jail 0:15:18.640 --> 0:15:20.600 and to Jeda. So I'm going to get place to 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:21.520 sweep forward there like that. 0:15:22.160 --> 0:15:25.520 Instead, the agents arrest him and charge him with lending 0:15:25.640 --> 0:15:30.560 material support to terrorism. Suddenly, he's facing up to thirty 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:35.680 years in prison for his part. Umer's also arrested based 0:15:35.720 --> 0:15:39.240 on the crazy ninja turtle statement. He's charged with two 0:15:39.280 --> 0:15:45.440 counts of lying to federal agents. The Hyatt's arrest was 0:15:45.480 --> 0:15:49.480 a huge news story. Now, some media outlets were skeptical. 0:15:49.760 --> 0:15:52.760 They ran stories highlighting the pole vaulting and the ninja 0:15:52.800 --> 0:15:56.120 turtles and the crazy mismatch between what Hammad and his 0:15:56.240 --> 0:15:59.760 dad had said, but other media bought it all hook 0:15:59.800 --> 0:16:02.960 line and sinker. They covered the story as proof that 0:16:03.040 --> 0:16:05.280 domestic sleeper cells existed. 0:16:05.760 --> 0:16:08.360 You throw a word out there, you throw the word terror, 0:16:08.400 --> 0:16:10.840 you throw the word martyr, you throw the word gihad 0:16:11.400 --> 0:16:15.880 out into public space, and people will believe almost anything 0:16:16.360 --> 0:16:18.720 because the fear is so great. 0:16:19.280 --> 0:16:21.680 There's a federal trial to get ready for, and the 0:16:21.760 --> 0:16:25.600 Hyatt family hires lawyers. But while the lawyer that Umer 0:16:25.680 --> 0:16:30.120 hires is very experienced, Hamed gets a novice. She'd never 0:16:30.160 --> 0:16:33.080 gone before a jury before. The plan was for her 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.680 to imitate whatever Umer's lawyer did, but that was no 0:16:36.800 --> 0:16:41.080 plan at all. The cases were totally different, very different charges, 0:16:41.520 --> 0:16:45.760 very different confessions. Hamid needed his own defense, but he 0:16:45.800 --> 0:16:48.520 didn't get one, or at least not a very good one. 0:16:48.760 --> 0:16:51.600 I mean, I've had some trial experience in my career. 0:16:51.680 --> 0:16:55.080 I know my way around a criminal courtroom. We've had 0:16:55.160 --> 0:16:59.640 contested hearings in our own post conviction cases, and I 0:16:59.720 --> 0:17:02.200 know more more about false confessions than a lot of 0:17:02.240 --> 0:17:06.080 other attorneys who practice in this area. But there is 0:17:06.320 --> 0:17:10.960 no way that I would ever take a case like this. 0:17:10.960 --> 0:17:14.680 This case required a trial lawyer, and one who had 0:17:14.760 --> 0:17:18.840 worked with a security clearance and had done cases in 0:17:19.000 --> 0:17:21.280 federal court against the FBI. 0:17:21.880 --> 0:17:24.920 Hammid's lawyer had some of the best false confession experts 0:17:24.960 --> 0:17:29.119 in her backyard, including doctor Richard Leo at the University 0:17:29.119 --> 0:17:32.679 of San Francisco, but when Hahmed's trial rolled around in 0:17:32.720 --> 0:17:35.640 two thousand and six, his lawyer didn't call doctor Leo 0:17:35.720 --> 0:17:40.280 to testify. Hamed's lawyer also didn't adequately challenge the government's 0:17:40.320 --> 0:17:44.120 claim that he carried a jihadi prayer in his wallet. 0:17:45.000 --> 0:17:49.520 Hamed did carry a note a tauiz, a standard Pakistani 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.720 Muslim prayer for good health and protection. It was a 0:17:52.760 --> 0:17:57.399 gift from Hammed's uncle after the meningitis, but Hamid's lawyer 0:17:57.440 --> 0:18:00.119 didn't clearly explain that the note had nothing to do 0:18:00.200 --> 0:18:03.439 with terrorism, and the jury was left to think the worst. 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:07.240 I mean, it's a travel prayer. You know, Jews travel 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:09.639 with eighteen cents in their front pocket when they go 0:18:09.680 --> 0:18:10.320 on an airplane. 0:18:10.359 --> 0:18:12.120 All right, well, I feel comfortable traveling with you, Steve. 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:13.520 You're gott me covered spiritually. 0:18:13.680 --> 0:18:18.520 No, I kind of elapsed jewe okay, But people have 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:21.240 these prayers with regard to travel, and that's what my 0:18:21.359 --> 0:18:24.720 understanding of this tawiz was. Yeah, I mean the language 0:18:24.760 --> 0:18:28.480 that that expert use makes it sound very ominous, but 0:18:28.520 --> 0:18:30.640 I'm not sure that was the right translation. 0:18:31.160 --> 0:18:35.240 Despite a pretty weak defense, Hamid's conviction was far from guaranteed. 0:18:36.040 --> 0:18:39.240 Even after hearing his confession, The jury still took nine 0:18:39.400 --> 0:18:42.600 days to reach a decision, but in the end they're 0:18:42.720 --> 0:18:46.760 verdict guilty. Later it came out that there had been 0:18:46.800 --> 0:18:51.200 instances of jury misconduct during deliberations. The jury foreman himself 0:18:51.200 --> 0:18:53.800 had said that if you put all Muslims in the 0:18:53.840 --> 0:18:58.200 same costume, they all look alike. Umer Hyatt's trial, on 0:18:58.240 --> 0:19:01.480 the other hand, ended in a mistrial, no verdict at all. 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:05.040 He ended up pleading guilty to some minor customs violations 0:19:05.160 --> 0:19:09.639 and was released but Hamid. On September tenth, two thousand 0:19:09.680 --> 0:19:13.560 and seven, Hamed Hyatt was sentenced to twenty four years 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.560 in prison. It was one day before the sixth anniversary 0:19:18.040 --> 0:19:24.560 of the nine to eleven attacks. Federal prison is no 0:19:24.640 --> 0:19:28.200 picnic for anyone, especially not a young muslinman who's been 0:19:28.200 --> 0:19:31.879 convicted of terrorism. Most inmates are allowed only a limited 0:19:31.960 --> 0:19:35.200 number of visits, something like once a week. Hamed was 0:19:35.240 --> 0:19:38.520 allowed only one visit per year from his family members. 0:19:39.040 --> 0:19:41.800 His dad, Umer didn't get permission to see him for 0:19:41.840 --> 0:19:45.800 more than eight years. But even while Hamat endured prison, 0:19:46.160 --> 0:19:48.960 he grew up for the first time. He was meeting 0:19:49.000 --> 0:19:53.719 people of different faiths and backgrounds, albeit behind bars, and 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.600 he began to realize that those things he'd said to 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:02.240 impress Naseem about terrorism being cool or toxic. When a 0:20:02.280 --> 0:20:07.199 reporter interviewed him in twenty sixteen, Hamad retracted everything. He 0:20:07.280 --> 0:20:10.199 told the reporter. It was wrong what I said. I 0:20:10.240 --> 0:20:14.000 totally disagree with myself. I didn't know much then. I 0:20:14.080 --> 0:20:16.040 wasn't open minded about a lot of stuff. 0:20:27.200 --> 0:20:30.520 So Hamid is in prison and he's doing his time, 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:33.000 and his case is winding its way through the system. 0:20:33.080 --> 0:20:37.320 He's losing at every stage. And then Hamid gets a new. 0:20:37.240 --> 0:20:40.360 Lawyer, a great lawyer by the name of Dennis Riardon. 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:43.520 For those of you who are real true crime junkies, 0:20:43.680 --> 0:20:46.080 you might remember Dennis Riardon as one of the leading 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:49.440 lawyers on the team that freed the West Memphis three. 0:20:50.040 --> 0:20:52.600 For us, of course, the important thing about the case 0:20:52.880 --> 0:20:56.040 is that this was not about just a bad trial. 0:20:56.280 --> 0:20:59.960 You can have cases like that where someone's rights are violated. 0:21:00.240 --> 0:21:03.840 We passionately believed and knew, we knew it was an 0:21:03.880 --> 0:21:05.080 actual innocence case. 0:21:05.720 --> 0:21:08.720 So Dennis starts investigating the time that Hamid spent in 0:21:08.760 --> 0:21:13.360 Pakistan between two thousand and three and two thousand and five. Remember, 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:17.120 the government said that during those two years, Hamad went 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.159 off for three months to a training camp. And what 0:21:20.200 --> 0:21:24.200 does Dennis discover alibi witnesses, eighteen of them. 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:27.960 They described in great detail his daily routine. He was 0:21:28.040 --> 0:21:32.159 generally almost every day in the native village, except for 0:21:32.200 --> 0:21:35.280 the time when he took two trips to ral Pindi 0:21:35.720 --> 0:21:39.040 with his mother. So there were witnesses from raal Pindi, 0:21:39.160 --> 0:21:43.320 there were witnesses from the village of Babudi. He had 0:21:43.400 --> 0:21:46.000 never been out of their site for more than at 0:21:46.040 --> 0:21:49.240 most a couple of days, and had never attended at 0:21:49.280 --> 0:21:53.000 camp as the government alleged, for three to six months. 0:21:53.320 --> 0:21:56.240 Person after person comes forward to say that when Hahmad 0:21:56.280 --> 0:21:59.280 was in Pakistan, he was living with family and friends 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.240 the whole time. There were no three month unexplained absences. 0:22:03.720 --> 0:22:06.720 He spent his days playing soccer, not training for jihad. 0:22:07.000 --> 0:22:09.840 Haman was no terrorist, He was totally innocent. 0:22:10.160 --> 0:22:13.960 Dennis prepares an appeal based on these alibis. He's granted 0:22:13.960 --> 0:22:17.280 a hearing, a chance to make the case for Hamad's innocence. 0:22:17.840 --> 0:22:21.040 The alibi witnesses testify at the hearing over a live 0:22:21.200 --> 0:22:25.879 video feed from Pakistan. Dennis also calls that false confession 0:22:25.960 --> 0:22:28.600 expert to the stand doctor Richard Leo. 0:22:28.680 --> 0:22:32.520 And doctor Leo testified that this confession was useless. It 0:22:32.640 --> 0:22:35.160 wasn't worth the tape that it was recorded on. 0:22:35.440 --> 0:22:39.160 And of course, if you look at the interrogation itself, 0:22:39.560 --> 0:22:42.880 one of the almost humorous aspects of it was that 0:22:42.920 --> 0:22:47.400 he was painfully thin and hardly looked like someone who 0:22:47.400 --> 0:22:51.640 had trained for terrorist activities, and in fact gave this 0:22:51.760 --> 0:22:56.200 description during this marathon interrogation where he's trying very hard 0:22:56.280 --> 0:22:58.879 to please them and give them answers. Well, I was 0:22:58.960 --> 0:23:02.280 in the camp. Did you ever do arms trading? Well, 0:23:02.320 --> 0:23:04.360 they gave me a rifle once, but it was too 0:23:04.400 --> 0:23:06.639 heavy for me, so they never gave it to me again, 0:23:07.040 --> 0:23:09.640 and so what they had me do was peel vegetables 0:23:09.640 --> 0:23:10.360 in the kitchen. 0:23:10.760 --> 0:23:14.560 The media is following all of this. A PBS Frontline 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:18.359 episode had been made questioning Hamid's conviction. A written piece 0:23:18.440 --> 0:23:21.320 in the intercept did the same thing, and while the 0:23:21.359 --> 0:23:24.520 hearing was going on, an episode of the Netflix series 0:23:24.680 --> 0:23:29.320 The confession tapes also pointed to Hammid's innocence. His case 0:23:29.480 --> 0:23:33.959 was attracting supporters, momentum was building fast. So what does 0:23:34.000 --> 0:23:38.000 the government do. They offer Hamid his freedom, but he's 0:23:38.000 --> 0:23:38.920 got to plead guilty. 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:41.359 As a lawyer, you're obligated to go to client and 0:23:41.560 --> 0:23:44.879 say the government is still talking about potentially helping you 0:23:44.920 --> 0:23:48.080 out if you provide them with information about Pakistan. And 0:23:48.119 --> 0:23:50.119 he said, I have nothing to provide them with. 0:23:50.480 --> 0:23:52.600 Now we've heard the story way too often. As soon 0:23:52.640 --> 0:23:55.840 as a case starts falling apart, the government offers a deal. 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:59.040