Speaker 1: Hey guys, it's Laura and I writer. This week, it's
Speaker 1: the story of Hamed Hyatt, a US citizen who was
Speaker 1: charged with terrorism in the frenzied time after the nine
Speaker 1: to eleven attacks. Hamed was one of the Muslim Men
Speaker 1: that were targeted by the FBI during its frantic search
Speaker 1: for terrorists still at large. But the story the FBI
Speaker 1: concocted about Hamed was full of crazy imagery and drama,
Speaker 1: almost like a movie or a comic strip. And that's
Speaker 1: because it wasn't true. Hamed Hyatt was innocent, but he
Speaker 1: served years behind bars before being exonerated. Now since we
Speaker 1: aired this episode, Hamed has gotten a new job with
Speaker 1: Amazon and he's working to rebuild his life. His new
Speaker 1: coworkers are often surprised to learn that he's been through
Speaker 1: the worst of the wrongful conviction stories and how well
Speaker 1: known his story is online. In fact, Hamed's story was
Speaker 1: featured prominently on comedian Hassan Minaja's Netflix special Patriot Act.
Speaker 1: Hasan Manaj even cited Hamed's story as the inspiration for
Speaker 1: the title of the show. While we wish that none
Speaker 1: of us had ever happened to Hamid, we're so glad
Speaker 1: his message is reaching a larger audience, and we wish
Speaker 1: him all the best. Welcome to Wrongful Conviction, False Confessions.
Speaker 1: I'm Laura and I.
Speaker 2: Writer and I'm Steve Drisin.
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'd 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 obtain in the case, and they look
Speaker 2: at the interrogation tapes, and you have to wonder what
Speaker 2: the prosecutors in this case were thinking when they saw
Speaker 2: these tapes. What were they thinking when the corroboration of
Speaker 2: this case was so thin.
Speaker 1: Hammed 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 Nasim
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 Lodai, Colorlifornia.
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 Lodie, California.
Speaker 1: The FBI, to its credit, didn't believe Nasim. They figured
Speaker 1: out soon enough that he had a reputation 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 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 Nasem. 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, Nassim wormed his way into Lodei's
Speaker 1: Pakistani neighborhoods. He started befriending people looking for any information
Speaker 1: the FBI might consider useful, and pretty soon Nissin began
Speaker 1: focusing on the Hyatt family, especially nineteen year old Hamid.
Speaker 1: Now the Hyatt family was well known in Lodi. They
Speaker 1: had no history of political involvement or extremism whatsoever. Hahmad'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. Nassin was ten years older than Hamid,
Speaker 2: and Hamid nineteen or so at the time, acted much
Speaker 2: more immaturely than his age. He had suffered a terrible
Speaker 2: batt of meningitis years earlier, which left him cognitively and
Speaker 2: physically slower.
Speaker 1: As a child, Hamed had split his time between his
Speaker 1: home and 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: 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. Hamed was in Nasim Andhmmed 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, Nasim 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, Hamad said that sounded cool. Fast
Speaker 1: forward a year to two thousand and three, Hamid's twenty
Speaker 1: one and his parents take him to Pakistan to find
Speaker 1: a bride for Nasim. This trip was a chance to
Speaker 1: up the ante to bully Hamed into actually going to
Speaker 1: a terrorist training camp. He starts telling Hamed that he's
Speaker 1: going to come to Pakistan himself and force Hamed into
Speaker 1: Jihati training, but Hamid refuses. He fends Nasim off with
Speaker 1: one excuse after another. It's too hot to go to
Speaker 1: a training camp, it's too difficult, I need to stay
Speaker 1: with my sick mother. It's pretty obvious Hammad has zero
Speaker 1: interest in becoming a terrorist. Finally, he straight out tells
Speaker 1: Nasim he's never going to a camp. It was their
Speaker 1: last phone call. Hamed gets married in Pakistan and ends
Speaker 1: up staying there for two years until June two thousand
Speaker 1: and five, when he decides to go back to the
Speaker 1: United States. He boards a plane in Pakistan.
Speaker 2: With his whole family, but the.
Speaker 1: Plane gets diverted to Tokyo because it turns out Hamit
Speaker 1: is on the no fly list. The whole Hyatt family
Speaker 1: is ushered off the plane and the FBI questions them
Speaker 1: about why they were overseas and who they were with.
Speaker 1: They even ask if the men Hamid was hanging out
Speaker 1: with had facial hair. Eventually, the family is allowed to
Speaker 1: get back on the plane and fly to California, but
Speaker 1: a day or two later, the FBI shows up again
Speaker 1: at the Hyatt family home and brings Hamed in to
Speaker 1: the Sacramento office for more questioning. Now let's step back.
Speaker 2: 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 seems 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: Hamud'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 as.
Speaker 1: Soon as the tapes rolling. The agents accuse Hamid of
Speaker 1: spending between three and six months at a terrorist training
Speaker 1: camp in Pakistan and then come to lies. First they
Speaker 1: say he failed a polygraph that he apparently took earlier
Speaker 1: that day. Second, they claimed to have satellite photographs of
Speaker 1: 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 my country, I do anything, you know, because you know,
Speaker 3: these guys are hurting our country about well.
Speaker 2: I appreciate that.
Speaker 3: I mean it's important because you know, every day in
Speaker 3: and as we see her, you know, our troops Arooko,
Speaker 3: they're very hard for you know, making peace in the
Speaker 3: whole world front.
Speaker 4: Why they're making peace, they're making peace.
Speaker 5: For us so we can live together, all of us.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And what do they do with these camps.
Speaker 1: What they're doing is to teaching people out to how
Speaker 1: to kill American truth of course, right, that's what the.
Speaker 2: 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, Hammud'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 Pakistan.
Speaker 3: You're all over the map here, oh yeah, and yeah,
Speaker 3: helping yourself out it by doing that, you know, Okay,
Speaker 3: when one minute you're saying Northwest Frontier, next minue you're
Speaker 3: saying cash from you, you're saying where this building was?
Speaker 5: Which city was it?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, I'll say about 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: Gon A Gourd and the BFP in NWFP.
Speaker 1: Calling for and of course, remember Hamad had said none
Speaker 1: of this to Nassm Khan, despite years of recorded phone calls. Instead,
Speaker 1: he told Nasim he'd never go to a training camp.
Speaker 1: It's only after this interrogation that Hamad 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.
Speaker 3: There are certain kinds of targets that you know, are
Speaker 3: are good targets. You know, if you're gonna be worth
Speaker 3: your salt as a geode, you to know about his targets,
Speaker 3: like buildings, And I'll say buildings.
Speaker 2: What kind of buildings you take your bags? You know?
Speaker 3: Okay, financial buildings, uh are private buildings, commercial buildings, big
Speaker 3: of the Unity's commercial arctics and like those kind of buildings.
Speaker 2: I see, all right, you're.
Speaker 3: Not yeah, but I'm not sure about the big things.
Speaker 3: You guys are talking about, the big ones that will
Speaker 3: see him, you know, finance.
Speaker 2: Let's say, And what else?
Speaker 3: What else did they tell you about coscuds?
Speaker 1: Maybe Hammid'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 Hamid
Speaker 1: admitted going to a training camp in Pakistan, and they
Speaker 1: start pressuring Umer to say he also went to visit Hamid,
Speaker 1: just like a parent would check out his kids college. Eventually,
Speaker 1: Umer agrees that he had gone to visit Hamid, 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 description, well,
Speaker 1: he says he saw one thousand fighters at this camp
Speaker 1: and they're all in a huge underground basement practicing pole vaulting.
Speaker 2: Do you know how high a ceiling has to be
Speaker 2: in order to pole 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 we've seen it
Speaker 1: on TV. All this goes on and on. Both men
Speaker 1: keep spinning stories and the agents aren't really getting anywhere.
Speaker 1: At three am, Ahmad starts complaining that his head hurts.
Speaker 1: He asks to go home and gets in sleep.
Speaker 3: You tell me, Kashmir, you tell me if Cahn stand
Speaker 3: northwest seeing playing it on whatever you want to play on.
Speaker 3: But what's goind of happening? That he's ran up the
Speaker 3: rest of you? Okay, so i'd beg here to over. No,
Speaker 3: you're not leaving here tonight now, No.
Speaker 2: I mean tomorrow. I'm going to be here tonight, staying.
Speaker 5: Here in that evening.
Speaker 1: You're going to go to jail and.
Speaker 5: Jed, So I'm going to get a place.
Speaker 2: To steep older 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 Hyat'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 Hamad 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 court room. We've
Speaker 2: had contested hearings in our own post conviction cases, and
Speaker 2: I know 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
Speaker 2: this this case required a trial lawyer and one who
Speaker 2: had worked with a security clearance and had done cases
Speaker 2: in 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 Jihati 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 Hamed's uncle after the meningitis, but Hamed'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: if you're going to be covered spiritually.
Speaker 2: No, I kind of elapsed jew, okay, But people have
Speaker 2: these prayers with regard to travel, and that's what my
Speaker 2: understanding of this Taouis 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 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 they're
Speaker 1: verdict guilty. Later it came out that there had been
Speaker 1: instances of dury 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 say see him
Speaker 1: for more than eight years. But even while Hamad 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 Hammed 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 Hahmad gets a new.
Speaker 1: Lawyer, a great lawyer by the name of Dennis rear
Speaker 1: And for those of you who are real true crime junkies,
Speaker 1: you might remember Dennis Reardon as one of the leading
Speaker 1: lawyers on the team that freed the West Memphis three
Speaker 1: For us.
Speaker 6: Of course, the important thing about the case is that
Speaker 6: this was not about just a bad trial. You can
Speaker 6: have cases like that where someone's rights are violated. We
Speaker 6: passionately believe and knew, we knew it was an actual
Speaker 6: 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 raul Pindi
Speaker 6: with his mother. So there were witnesses from wyl Pindi,
Speaker 6: there were witnesses from the village of Babuti. 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 Hamad
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: Hamad 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 Hahmad'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 owly 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. Well 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, robl to go to Calient and say,
Speaker 6: the government is still talking about potentially helping you out
Speaker 6: if you provide him with information about Pakistan, and he said,
Speaker 6: 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 say face and it's pretty hard for
Speaker 1: any defendant to turn down. But Hamad, he.
Speaker 6: Said, I've gone through all of that and I am
Speaker 6: not going to stand up and say that I did
Speaker 6: something I didn't do. And we said, you know, we
Speaker 6: have a very strong case, but there's no way we
Speaker 6: can guarantee you that it will succeed, and he said,
Speaker 6: 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 6: I wept, 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 wrongdoing.
Speaker 6: And his family knew that he had been freed, but
Speaker 6: they didn't know what was the next step family was
Speaker 6: brought to the Council on American Islamic Relations, not knowing
Speaker 6: that he would be there, and the video of his
Speaker 6: mother seeing him for the first time in fourteen years
Speaker 6: because she was never able to visit him, and then
Speaker 6: the same with his father.
Speaker 4: Jeremy Jeremah Jeremah.
Speaker 6: It was extraordinary. Everyone wept just watching it.
Speaker 1: Since his exoneration, Hama'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: Hammed'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 Hamad, we're here to support you too.
Speaker 6: Hey, Hammed, is that you?
Speaker 2: Hey? Laura? How you doing? Good?
Speaker 1: Good?
Speaker 5: What are you up to today?
Speaker 4: Not much? Where are you stand the day you sand
Speaker 4: with your family? 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: Surely a blessing.
Speaker 5: They always believed in you.
Speaker 4: My family was there, my legal team was there, all
Speaker 4: my supporters. That was my hope, my parent.
Speaker 1: Where do you see yourself five years from them?
Speaker 4: I just want to go back to school and get
Speaker 4: my ice school the phone line did, and go to
Speaker 4: college after that. 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 4: It's amazing.
Speaker 5: You've been out since August and you're already way better
Speaker 5: 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 ignored.
Speaker 1: Standards start being cut short 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 Hamad 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. 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, and you.
Speaker 2: Can follow me on Twitter at s Drisen.
Speaker 1: For more information on the show, visit wrong Conviction podcast
Speaker 1: dot com and be sure to follow the show on
Speaker 1: Instagram at Wrongful Conviction, on Facebook at Wrongful Conviction Podcast,
Speaker 1: and on Twitter. At wrong conviction