California terrorist case weakens in court

LODI, Calif. — The FBI's discovery last summer of an alleged al-Qaida cell among the Pakistani immigrants in this sleepy farm town sent a shiver through California's heartland.

Federal agents and surveillance aircraft swarmed Lodi in June after the arrests of five local Muslim men who the Justice Department said were poised to commit terrorist acts. Journalists surrounded the local mosque, seeking explanations for how radical Islam could take root in the conservative San Joaquin Valley.

This town of 62,000 people, known as the place where Creedence Clearwater Revival sang about being stuck in 1969, became an unlikely jihadist hot spot.

"Lodi was famous for wines," lamented John Beckman, a city councilman. "Suddenly, we became famous for terrorists."

Nearly 10 months later, the much-ballyhooed case appears enfeebled. Some experts say it fits a pattern of the government overstating the importance of post-Sept. 11 terrorism cases.

"Our confidence in the FBI has been severely shaken," Beckman said. "When we look at the totality of the case, a lot of folks here are wondering, 'Is that all the FBI has?' "

In U.S. District Court in Sacramento, federal prosecutors last week rested their case against the only two men charged in the plot: Hamid Hayat, 23, a sixth-grade dropout charged with supporting terrorists by undergoing training at an extremist base in Pakistan; and his father, Umer Hayat, 48, an ice-cream vendor, charged with lying about his son's aims in Pakistan.

The government introduced no evidence that Hamid Hayat plotted any specific terrorist acts. Other than his own disputed admissions, prosecutors produced no evidence that he actually received any training.

The government's case relies largely on the testimony of its star witness, a convenience-store manager who received $230,000 in FBI payments for infiltrating the Lodi mosque.

The informant, Naseem Khan, stunned the court when he testified that he had seen Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, at the Lodi mosque in 1999. Experts say it is unlikely the terrorist was in America then.

The two Lodi imams who the FBI suggested were al-Qaida's conduits of instructions were never charged with terrorism. They and one of their sons chose deportation rather than fighting alleged visa violations.

"If they really were involved in any kind of terrorism, they wouldn't be allowed to leave the country voluntarily," said their attorney, Saad Ahmad.

Experts say the Lodi case is not unusual. Although the Justice Department says that 401 people have been charged in "terrorism-related offenses" since the Sept. 11 attacks and that 212 have been convicted, analysts say only a handful were proved to be hard-core terrorists.

"There's a pattern of government overreaching and exaggerating the significance of indictments when they're announced and later backing off," said David Cole, a Georgetown University law professor and a frequent government critic.

"What it suggests is that in the zeal to notch up symbolic victories in the war on terrorism, and to further the public image of the Justice Department in protecting us, they have trumped up charges against people."

But others say it is impossible to measure the deterrent effect of the government's aggressive action against suspects for what appear to be petty offenses such as immigration violations.

The Justice Department has a mixed record in the war on terrorism. Its first big trial success against an "operational combat sleeper cell" in Detroit was overturned. The prosecutor and a State Department employee were indicted last week, accused of misleading the defense.

The government's case against Sami al-Arian, accused of being an Islamic Jihad activist, ended in embarrassment in December when a jury acquitted the Florida professor.

Some of its most successful prosecutions relied upon the work of others. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, was foiled by a flight attendant rather than by FBI agents.

Ahmed Omar Abu Ali, the Virginia student sentenced last week to 30 years in prison for threatening to kill President Bush, was nabbed and interrogated by Saudi police.

Government officials say Justice's record is better than critics portray it. In a December speech, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales lauded 15 "significant" convictions in 10 separate terrorism cases in 2005.

Yet even supporters of a strong counterterrorism effort caution the government about hype. Bruce Hoffman, a counterterrorism expert at the Rand Corp. in Washington, said overstating cases may eventually undermine support for the war on extremists.

"You have people focusing their attention on the government or the way they present the case when you want them focusing on the real threat from terrorism," he said.