Johnny
Griffin III, left, the attorney for Umer Hayat,
talks with reporters after a mistrial was declared
in his client’s case, outside the federal
courthouse in Sacramento, Calif., Tuesday, April
25, 2006
The
family members of terror probe suspect Umer Hayat;
wife, Salma Hayat, right; and daughter, Raheela,
11; and son, Arslan Hayat, 17, background; smile
as they leave the federal courthouse in Sacramento,
California
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San
Francisco: A US federal judge declared a mistrial
on Tuesday in the case of a Pakistani-American accused
of covering up his son’s alleged Al Qaeda training.
A district court judge in Sacramento, California,
released jurors after they assured him they could
not agree whether Umar Hayat lied to the FBI about
his son attending an Al Qaeda camp in Pakistan.
“The Umer Hayat jury is deadlocked and the jury
has been released,” Mary Wenger of the Attorney’s
Office said in a statement.
A separate jury continued to deliberate the guilt
or innocence of Umar Hayat’s 23-year-old son,
Hamid.
Hamid Hayat, 23, allegedly trained with militants
in Pakistan and planned an attack in the United States,
Assistant Attorney Laura Ferris argued at trial.
Laura Ferris portrayed him as an ‘Islamic fundamentalist’
bent on carrying out jihad and promised to prove he
intended to ‘commit jihad’ in the United
States.
Defense attorney Wazhma Mojaddidi countered that Hamid
Hayat never had attended a training camp.
Hamid Hayat and his
father, 48-year-old Umer Hayat, were being tried in
the courtroom of District Judge Garland Burrell in
the California state capital.
Hamid Hayat was charged with one count of providing
material support to terrorists and two counts of lying
to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents when initially
questioned about his alleged six months in an Al Qaeda
training camp in 2003 and 2004.
His father was charged with lying to the FBI to cover
up the training.
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