U.S. CITIZEN?: Yes
INFORMANT: FBI paid him $230,000
CHARGE: Having "jihadi heart and a jihadi mind"
TWIST: No evidence of jihadi actions
OUTCOME: Sentenced to 24 years
When Hamid Hayat was arrested in June 2005, President Bush praised the arrest for helping to "bust up these terrorist networks." But just what network is still a mystery. After receiving a tip about Muslim radicals in Lodi, California, the FBI hired a former resident, Naseem Khan, to be an informant. Khan befriended Hayat, who was recorded making some odious statements. Speaking of Daniel Pearl's murder, Hayat proclaimed, "I'm pleased about that. They cut him into pieces and sent him back." But as one FBI agent acknowledged during his trial, Hayat's talk was "more boasting than actual substance." When Khan talked about jihad, Hayat scoffed, "No, man, these days there's no use in doing that." When Hayat traveled to Pakistan to look for a bride, Khan called and castigated him: "You sound like a fucking broken bitch. Come on. Be a man. Do something."
Prosecutors focused on Hayat's confession, after an extended interrogation, that he had attended a training camp for militants. But Hayat recanted and the government never identified which camp Hayat supposedly attended or who controlled it.
The jury, unaware of the possible sentence that Hayat faced, convicted (though one member later recanted her vote). "We're not being asked, 'Did the defendant commit the crime?'" the jury's foreman, Joseph Cote, told The Atlantic. "Now you're being asked, 'Is the defendant capable of doing a crime?'...That's what made the verdict so tough. Because we thought in the gut, 'Maybe he may not do it.'"