FBI Attributes Fatal Santa Ana Bombing to JDL

The FBI said Friday it believes the Jewish Defense League was responsible for the Oct. 11 bomb blast in Orange County that killed Arab rights leader Alex Odeh, and for at least two other recent terrorist incidents on the East Coast.

“We are attributing the three bombings to the JDL,” Lane Bonner, a supervisory special agent at FBI headquarters in Washington, said in a telephone interview. “There are similarities in all three bombings, but we can’t comment on details, because they’re all still under investigation.”

However, federal and local investigators told The Times recently that there are similarities in the explosive devices used in the three incidents.

JDL Leader’s Reply

Irv Rubin, leader of the 7,000-member JDL, was reached by The Times Friday night.

“It’s absolutely absurd, obscene and outrageous that the FBI would release to the media a statement saying there may be a link between the death of Odeh and the league,” Rubin said. “It’s now time to put up and shut up. Instead of making libelous and slanderous statements, the FBI should make an arrest.

“What kind of a supposed law enforcement agency releases a statement that may indeed cause harm, physical harm, to Jewish people everywhere in the United States. If they have any evidence and I say if . . . then instead of manipulating the media they should proceed immediately with an arrest.”

Rubin said if the FBI does not arrest a JDL member “within the next 24 hours” he would file a lawsuit against the agency.

Odeh died after the blast shattered the Santa Ana offices of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee.

Bonner said the FBI also believes the JDL was behind the Aug. 15 bomb blast in Paterson, N.J., that killed accused Nazi war criminal Tscherim Soobzokov, 61, and a second bombing on Long Island on Sept. 6.

Soobzokov was fatally injured when he opened the front door to his home after being awakened by a neighbor who discovered a burning car in front of the former Nazi’s home.

Connected by ‘Trip Wire’

Paterson police Lt. John Ragucci said the bomb, which blew off a portion of Soobzokov’s right leg, was connected to the door by a “trip wire.”

In the Long Island incident, former Latvian policeman and accused Nazi war criminal Elmars Sprogis, 70, escaped injury when a bomb blast shattered the front door of his home. FBI spokesman Joseph Valiquette said “the door did appear to have been booby-trapped.”

The Santa Ana bombing occurred the morning after Odeh, appearing on a Los Angeles television broadcast, had said that Palestine Liberation Organization leader Yasser Arafat was a “man of peace” because of his role in securing the release of passengers from the hijacked Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro in Egypt. Odeh, who was a naturalized U.S. citizen, had also condemned the Oct. 7 hijacking of the luxury liner by four Palestinian gunmen.

No Arrests Made

The FBI is continuing to investigate the Orange County bombing and no arrests have been made.

Odeh, 41, the West Coast regional director for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, was fatally wounded as he entered the group’s office on the second floor of a three-story building. Investigators said the bomb was rigged to go off when the door was opened.

The father of three small children, Odeh died about two hours later. Seven others suffered minor injuries but were not hospitalized.

FBI agents and local police say they do not necessarily believe that Odeh was the intended victim. Odeh rarely opened the office in the morning, one investigator said, and most often it was his secretary, Hind Baki, who got there first.

“Odeh wasn’t the target,” said one investigator, who requested anonymity. “His group was the target. The bomb was set to go off when the door was opened. It didn’t have to be Odeh. It could have been anybody. It could have been his secretary.”