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(05-05) 11:35 PDT LODI - Federal prosecutors announced today that they will retry a Lodi man after a jury deadlocked on charges that he allegedly lied to the FBI about his son's training at a Pakistani terrorist camp. Umer Hayat, an ice cream driver, faces up to 16 years in prison if he is convicted on two charges of providing false statements to federal investigators. Hayat was released Monday on bail. After U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. reduced Hayat's bail from $1.2 million, the equity in Hayat's home -- $390,000 -- was put up as a guarantee that he...

LODI, Calif. - Eighteen months after FBI agents swarmed Lodi's Muslim community and arrested a father and son on terrorism-related charges, investigators said they are still examining several individuals named by the pair. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott and Drew Parenti, who heads the FBI's Sacramento office, met Friday with about 100 members of the Pakistani community at the Lodi Muslim Mosque. The site was part of a federal probe into what investigators initially said was a suspected terrorist cell in the agricultural community south of Sacramento. Hamid Hayat, 24, was convicted in April of one count of providing material support...

The federal government has barred two relatives of a Lodi man convicted of supporting terrorists from returning to the country after a lengthy stay in Pakistan, placing the U.S. citizens in an extraordinary legal limbo. Muhammad Ismail, a 45-year-old naturalized citizen born in Pakistan, and his 18-year-old son, Jaber Ismail, who was born in the United States, have not been charged with a crime. However, they are the uncle and cousin of Hamid Hayat, a 23-year-old Lodi cherry packer who was convicted in April of supporting terrorists by attending a Pakistani training camp. Federal authorities said Friday that the men,...

SACRAMENTO -- A Lodi ice cream vendor pleaded guilty Wednesday to a lesser charge of trying to smuggle cash to Pakistan rather than be retried on allegations that he lied to the FBI about his son's attendance at a terrorist training camp. Umer Hayat, 48, was convicted of lying to customs agents about more than $28,000 he and family members were trying to carry on a flight out of the country three years ago. In exchange, prosecutors dropped charges that he lied to the FBI and he will serve no more jail time after spending nearly a year behind bars....

SACRAMENTO, Calif. - In a potential blow to their terrorism case against a father and son, federal prosecutors on Thursday said there is no evidence to support statements by their key witness that a top aide to Osama bin Laden attended a northern California mosque in the late 1990s. The surprise move was designed to dissuade the defense from calling witnesses who would challenge the story's credibility. The witness, an FBI informant, told agents when they recruited him in 2001 that he had seen a high-ranking al-Qaida official and two other international terrorists when he lived in Lodi during the...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - A Pakistani cleric facing deportation was accused Friday during an immigration hearing of trying to incite followers to defend Osama bin Laden and kill Americans. Shabbir Ahmed, 39, seeking bail on a charge of overstaying his visa to head a Lodi mosque in the Central Valley, denied that he had made any speech against the United States. During the same hearing, a government attorney said another Lodi imam being held on immigration charges once had close ties to the Taliban. Justice Department attorney Paul Nishiie argued against releasing Ahmed on bail, saying he was linked to...

SAN FRANCISCO -- A lead FBI agent on Tuesday linked two local Muslim clerics to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden, contending the two were planning to set up a school near Lodi that would breed anti-American terrorism. The agent testified that Lodi clerics Shabbir Ahmed and Mohammed Adil Khan were prepared to relay information on terrorist plots from sources close to bin Laden. The allegations were dismissed by Ahmed's lawyer, who said the FBI and federal prosecutors have "made the whole thing up." The striking allegations came during an immigration hearing for Ahmed at which Immigration Judge Anthony Murry...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A federal judge on Wednesday rejected bail for a Lodi man involved in a terrorism investigation, finding that his relatives could not properly post his $1.2 million bond. U.S. Attorney McGregor W. Scott said he was gratified by the ruling, which overturned a decision last month by a federal magistrate who approved bail for Umer Hayat. Hayat's attorney said he will appeal Wednesday's decision to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. Hayat, 47, was arrested in June and charged with lying to the FBI by denying that his son attended an al-Qaida training camp in Pakistan...

Efforts to win Umer Hayat's release from jail fell into doubt Friday after a federal judge expressed strong concerns about the competency of an uncle who offered to help provide bail for the Lodi resident charged with lying to the FBI about alleged terrorist ties. Hayat's uncle, Sher Afzel, owns one of four properties being offered as security for $1.2 million bail set last month by U.S. District Judge Garland E. Burrell Jr. Other properties are owned by Hayat's cousin, Safdr Afzal; his brother, Umer Khatab; and his son, Hamid Hayat, who also is jailed on charges in connection with...

In the days after federal agents arrested five residents of Lodi in a terror investigation in June, a clean-cut young man who had befriended the suspects and had spent nights at their homes vanished. Umer Hayat is charged with lying about activities in Pakistan. He hasn't been seen in town since, and now members of Lodi's Muslim community suspect they know why: The man, who called himself Nasim Khan, was a government mole, they believe, an informer whose surreptitious tape recordings of one of the suspects are at the heart of the federal probe. Community members said Khan, who is...

SACRAMENTO (AP) - A father and son from Lodi were indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury on charges that they lied to authorities investigating links to Pakistani terrorist training camps connected to al-Qaida. Hamid Hayat, 22, allegedly lied to the FBI earlier this month when he said he did not attend a terrorism camp in Pakistan last year and in 2003, prosecutors said. He was charged with two counts of lying to the FBI. His father, Umer Hayat, 47, was charged with a single count of lying to investigators when he denied that his son had attended such camps....

When 20-year-old Hamid Hayat left his home in California a little more than two years ago, he was like a lot of young Americans—aimless and a bit unsure about his future. Rail-thin and addicted to videogames, he lived with his parents in Lodi, Calif., a small farming town south of Sacramento. An amiable ice-cream vendor, his father, Umer Hayat, was known around the neighborhood as Homer, after the "Simpsons" sticker on the back of his truck. But the younger Hayat had trouble finding steady work. So when his mother fell ill with liver disease in 2003, the family traveled back...

A lengthy investigation has uncovered a suspected al-Qaeda terrorist cell in Lodi, in the midst of California's agricultural heartland, federal authorities said yesterday. Umer Hayat, 47, an ice cream truck driver, and his son Hamid Hayat, 22, were arrested Sunday on charges of lying to the FBI. The two men, both believed to be U.S. citizens, are accused of attempting to deceive agents about Hamid Hayat's six-month stint at an al-Qaeda terrorist training camp in Pakistan in 2003 and 2004. Authorities said the investigation has been under way for several years but declined to comment further about the breadth and...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (Reuters) - The FBI has arrested a Pakistani-American father and son living in California after the son admitted to attending an al Qaeda training camp in Pakistan, U.S. officials said on Wednesday. Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer, 45, of Lodi, 35 miles (60 km) south of state capital Sacramento, were taken into custody over the weekend. Both men are being held in Sacramento on charges of lying to federal authorities. "We believe through our investigation that various individuals connected to al Qaeda have been operating in the Lodi area in various capacities," Keith Slotter, special agent...

FBI arrests father and son shortly after the younger man returns from overseas, where he allegedly trained at an Al Qaeda camp. Lodi, CA – FBI agents have arrested a man and his father after the son allegedly admitted attending Al Qaeda training camps in Pakistan that taught participants "how to kill Americans," federal authorities said Tuesday. In a case that was still unfolding, officials confirmed that Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, Umer, 47, were taken into custody Sunday. Authorities said late Tuesday that they were still trying to determine whether the arrests represented the discovery of a small...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Federal authorities arrested a father and son after the younger man allegedly acknowledged that he attended an al-Qaida camp in Pakistan to learn "how to kill Americans," according to published reports. Hamid Hayat and his father, Umer Hayat, 47, were arrested over the weekend on charges of lying to federal agents, FBI agent John Cauthen confirmed to The Associated Press on Tuesday night. According to prosecutors, Hamid Hayat trained to use explosives and other weapons, using photographs of President Bush as targets. The Sacramento Bee reported his age as 22; the Los Angeles Times said he is...

Federal officials believe they have broken up an al Qaeda terror cell operating in Lodi and have arrested two men and detained two others as part of a wide-ranging investigation, authorities said Tuesday. One of the men arrested, 22-year-old Hamid Hayat, is accused in a federal criminal complaint of training in an al Qaeda camp in Pakistan to learn “how to kill Americans” and then lying to FBI agents about it. His training included explosives and weapons instruction and using photographs of President Bush as targets, court documents indicate. More:http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/v-print/story/13022958p-13869232c.html