When police arrested Mark Anthony Sweeney in Oakland, it was a double. One, Sweeney was wanted for online child pornography. Two, he had been identified by Newark police as the person who left a number of hate-filled and racially motivated messages for Sayed Mahmood, who was the Republican candidate for the 13th Congressional District from the state.

"During my campaign, my staff started to receive these hate-filled phone calls and emails after August 17... that were targeted at the South Asian and Middle-Eastern communities," Mahmood, who is of South Asian origin, told rediff.com After about seven or eight messages, Fremont police tracked one of the calls to a cell phone and identified Sweeney.

Mahmood ran unsuccessfully against incumbent Rep Pete Stark in the November elections.

"I guess they wanted to investigate him further," said Mahmood of the delay in the arrest, which happened on December 20. What surprised him, though, was the decision of the Alameda County District Attorney's office not to charge Sweeney with any hate crimes as specified in 653(M) of the California penal code.

Instead, Sweeney has been indicted with multiple counts of child pornography.

"I am a little disappointed by the decision," said Mahmood, adding that he would consult with the DA's office before taking any further action. "It is a matter of concern because these person targeted specific ethnic categories and made racial comments. Also, how do you decide where to draw the line at hate crimes? How much can a person say and get away with before you decide it's a hate crime?"

In some of the message, Sweeney allegedly called Mahmood and other South Asian and Middle-Eastern immigrants 'camel jockeys' and 'turban heads', exhorting them to go back to where they came from. Other calls are clearly offensive and obscene in content.

Besides, many of Mahmood's campaign boards in fences were defaced, with the words '9/11' inscribed across them. On others, an encircled 'A' or 'W' or 'N' appeared, which Mahmood said he could not understand.

In Mahmood's constituency there are around 249,000 voters, out of which around 10,000 are of South Asian and Middle-Eastern origin.

However, Richard Klemmer, chief of the Newark-Union City-Fremont branch of the Alameda County DA's office, said the hate crime angle was still under review. "There are elements within the hate crime law that have to be met, as well as underlying factors of criminality," he told rediff.com "This particular case involves interesting legal and constitutional issues."

Complicating the issue is the fact that Mahmood is a high profile politician. Klemmer added that there were looking for evidentiary proof and issues of constitutional permissions under the First Amendment that is normally extended to US citizens.

"Bad facts make for bad law," said Klemmer, arguing that taking a case with facts that cannot prove to a 12-member jury the guilt of the accused beyond a shadow of doubt could result in it being thrown out.

Citing internal deliberations, Klemmer declined to discuss specific concerns that the case raised, but said that adding the hate crime charges were unlikely to add much more imprisonment than what might be given under the child pornography cases.

Mahmood, for his part, said he was glad that Sweeney had been apprehended and said that he would like to see him off the streets so that "children in the community are safe". However, he said he would have liked to see the hate crimes charges brought against Sweeney.