Lodi Men Had Jihad Book, Judge Told

Publications promoting jihad and a Pakistani militant group were found in the home of a father and son being tried on terrorism-related charges, a prosecutor said Wednesday.

FBI agents found the items while searching the family home in the Central Valley town of Lodi two days after the men were arrested last June, Assistant U.S. Atty. Robert Tice-Raskin said during the men’s trial in U.S. District Court.

“This is the book entitled ‘Book of Jihad,’ ” he said. “It teaches the virtues of violent jihad,” the Arabic term for holy war.

A magazine found with the book was published in Urdu, Pakistan’s official language, by “a well-known militant group in Pakistan,” Tice-Raskin told U.S. District Judge Garland Burrell Jr. Hamid Hayat, 23, and his father, 48-year-old Umer Hayat, are being tried in front of separate juries, which were together in the courtroom for the second time Wednesday during the fifth week of their trial.

Hamid Hayat is being tried on three counts of lying to the FBI and separate charges of providing material support to terrorists by attending an Al Qaeda training camp. His father is charged with two counts of making false statements to the FBI.

Both men have pleaded not guilty. Their attorneys contend that the younger man never actually attended a camp despite repeated promises, and government witnesses say they have little proof other than the men’s statements, which were videotaped by the FBI.

Agents searching their home also found a scrapbook kept by Hamid Hayat that was filled with anti-American Pakistani newspaper articles that defend Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and Afghanistan’s Taliban, and indict the United States as “the world’s biggest terrorist.”