Informant’s Tactics Are Questioned
SACRAMENTO — Posing as a computer expert with a “secret agenda†to support Muslim causes, the FBI’s undercover informant offered to send money from a Lodi, Calif., man to a Pakistani political party, according to transcripts of a recorded conversation introduced Tuesday in a federal terrorism trial.
Defense attorneys described the statements as part of a pattern of provocative and extremist comments that informant Naseem Khan made to win the confidence of the two defendants.
Khan was testifying Tuesday for the first time since his sensational statement last week that he had frequently seen Al Qaeda’s No. 2 leader at the Lodi mosque in 1999.
“When it came to expressing extreme radical Islamic views, it was the government’s informant who set the stage. His words were far more extreme than anything my client said,†said attorney Johnny L. Griffin, who represents Lodi ice cream truck driver Umer Hayat, 48, the man Khan approached about sending money to Pakistan.
Hayat and son Hamid Hayat, 23, are on trial in Sacramento federal court. The younger Hayat is charged with providing support for terrorism by attending a training camp in Pakistan in late 2003. Both men are charged with lying to the FBI.
After Khan repeated his allegation Tuesday that he saw Al Qaeda leader Ayman Zawahiri in the Lodi mosque, Griffin criticized the government for launching what he contended was a major investigation based on false claims. Terrorism experts and even government officials say it is highly unlikely that Zawahiri visited the United States anytime after 1995, four years before Khan alleged that he saw him and exchanged greetings with him.
“They were looking for Osama’s No. 2, and they ended up with an ice cream truck driver,†Griffin said.
In one recording, Khan -- a Bend, Ore., convenience store manager hired by the FBI to infiltrate the large Lodi Muslim community from 2001 until last year -- told defendant Umer Hayat that the best way to secretly send cash to Pakistan was through Khan’s company.
On the transcripts of the conversations recorded Aug. 20, 2003, Umer Hayat agreed to give Khan $4,000 to send to an unnamed political party in Pakistan and another $4,000 later. Khan testified that he never received the promised money.
Eyes fixed on Khan, the man he welcomed into his family and described as another son, Umer Hayat sat expressionless through the day of testimony.
As Khan, whom the FBI code-named “Wildcat,†attempted to steer the conversation toward training camps, Hayat expressed his hope that his son would finish his religious education and come back as an imam for a mosque in Sacramento.
Much of the language was ambiguous as to whether the two men were talking about religious education or a training camp.
Umer Hayat: “He [Hamid] is wasting time.â€
Khan: “I told him, ‘Go now.’ He said, ‘Now that exams have started, it is useless to go as I’ll not learn anything.’ Then he said to me, ‘God willing, I am going to training in September.’ I told him, ‘You are just lying to me.’ â€
Hayat: “Absolutely. He is lying completely; I swear by God, I am his father.â€
Born in Pakistan and naturalized as a U.S. citizen in 2004 after he started working for the FBI, Khan complained to Umer Hayat that Muslims in America “are cowards to take action†and that “they should not sit idle,†according to a paraphrased section of the recording introduced into evidence Tuesday by federal prosecutors.
On the stand, Khan said he used the aggressive language to “let him know that I was on his side supporting Islam and its cause against its enemies.â€
“Do you support that now?†Assistant U.S. Atty. Laura Ferris asked.
“No, I do not,†Khan responded.
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