1,200 Mourn Alex Odeh : Security Surrounds Bomb Victim’s Rites

Heavy security surrounded nearly 1,200 mourners on Tuesday at services in Orange for Alex M. Odeh, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee regional director killed by a bomb blast on Friday.

More than 30 police officers from three Orange County law enforcement agencies were posted in and around St. Norbert Catholic Church, which had been the target of two bomb threats telephoned to news services on Monday night and Tuesday.

“Quite frankly, even without those threats, our security would have been the same,” said Sgt. Ed Tunstall of the Orange Police Department, who added that the church had been checked Monday and again Tuesday morning.

The mourners heard the 41-year-old Odeh praised as “a gentle and peaceful man” and “a poet dedicated to advancing civilization.”

Odeh, who had been born in Palestine, died Friday morning, two hours after the bomb shattered the Santa Ana offices of the committee, of which he was the regional director. The bomb, which caused extensive damage to the athree-story office building on East 17th Street, apparently exploded as Odeh entered the office on the second floor, investigators said.

Police and federal agencies on Tuesday had nothing new to report on their investigations. No one has claimed responsibility for the bombing, which injured seven other people.

James Abourezk, national chairman of the committee, said during Tuesday’s service that Odeh “had been able to see the despair felt by those Palestinians whose lives have been trashed by the greed of the rulers of Israel.”

‘Cowardly Assassin’

“What he has done in his lifetime can never be erased by the work of a cowardly assassin,” said Abourezk, a former U.S. senator from South Dakota. “I have news for him, and for those who have applauded Alex’s death: You have not stilled his voice.”

Abourezk called Odeh “an American in the highest sense of the word” and said that “he saw the danger in American policies that have brought death to the land of his birth.”

Father Jerome Karcher, who officiated at the services, said Odeh “spoke passionately and freely of the oneness of our people, whether they are Moslem or Christian . . . . Surely, this was an innocent man.”

Also attending the services were consular representatives of several Middle East countries, Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell and local civic and government officials.

The 950-seat church was filled. Outside, 200 others heard the services over a speaker system.

As people arrived at 10 a.m., police checked their cars and license plate numbers. Officers were stationed both inside and outside the church and on the roof of an adjacent building. Besides police from Orange, officers from Santa Ana and members of the Orange County sheriff’s bomb squad were on hand, and a sheriff’s helicopter circled the area.

Police also swept the entire six-mile route the funeral procession took from the church to Holy Sepulcher Cemetery on Santiago Canyon Road and even checked bridges that the road crossed. Officers set up a hillside observation post across from the cemetery, and the sheriff’s helicopter escorted the procession to the grave site.

Security Heavy

“The nature of his death and his political affiliations obviously were a matter of great concern to us,” said Sgt. Tunstall of Orange. He said his department was not involved in the investigation but merely provided security.

During the brief graveside rites, members of Odeh’s family were closely guarded by a phalanx of plainclothes officers, who kept them separated from the estimated 400 people who had come to the cemetery.

Odeh’s casket was draped with the American flag and that of his Palestinian homeland.

Following the service, some of the crowd began chanting in Arabic and sang what one onlooker described as a Palestinian anthem as they left.