500 Attend Dinner to Honor Slain Arab Leader

The Rev. Jesse Jackson said Saturday in Anaheim that the FBI should pursue the killers of Arab-American Alex Odeh with the same intensity used to find the killers of American Leon Klinghoffer.

“The same degree of vigor with which the terrorists who killed Mr. Klinghoffer were pursued should be used in pursuit of the killers of Alex Odeh,” Jackson said, referring to the murder of Klinghoffer by hijackers on the cruise ship Achille Lauro just before Odeh’s death.

Jackson was the keynote speaker Saturday night at a dinner in memory of Odeh at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel. About 500 people attended.

Odeh, 41, was killed Oct. 11, 1985, when a bomb exploded as he opened the door to the Santa Ana office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Odeh was the ADC’s western regional coordinator.

Reward Offered

A $100,000 reward offered for information leading to an arrest and conviction of Odeh’s killers was formally announced Saturday by David Habib, Los Angeles ADC chapter president. Habib said the money has been placed in a bank account and will be available for only 90 days.

“We don’t expect a resolution of the case within this period,” Habib said. But the reward offer will expire on Jan. 12, he said, because, “we don’t want the thing to drag on forever.”

The reward will be available to anyone who gives information that leads to convictions, even if the arrests occur after Jan. 12, Habib said. He thanked the Santa Ana Police Department for setting up a hot line at (714) 647-9433 for information.

If more than one tip leads to arrests, police and the FBI will determine how the money will be divided.

He did not provide details of the contributors, but said that “a lot of sweat went into it. The money was put up with pride and hope. It was a community effort.”

Grave Doubts

Many who came to Anaheim to memorialize Odeh said they had grave doubts that Odeh’s killers would ever be found. Recent congressional hearings have indicated that the killers probably slipped out of the country shortly after the bombing and now live in Israel, said Abdeen Jabara, national president of the ADC.

Jabara said FBI director William Webster revealed at those hearings that the bureau is working with Israeli authorities on the case. But he said the ADC is “somewhat concerned” that the Israeli government will not be willing to vigorously pursue capture and extradition of the killers.

“We are afraid the FBI’s effectiveness in the case will be limited,” he said.

Jabara said a memo from the Secret Service’s Los Angeles office to its headquarters in Washington indicated that the investigation had “met with negative results.” However, he said Webster had denied that the case is closed.

FBI spokesman Fred Reagan said earlier this week that the bureau continues to “actively investigate” the case. Santa Ana Police Lt. Michael B. Foote, who attended the dinner, repeated that statement Saturday night.

Odeh’s brother, Sami, said Saturday that he has tried to maintain faith in the FBI but found it difficult after a year without progress. The FBI might not have closed the case, he said, “but I’m afraid that maybe they have put it into an ‘active-inactive’ file.”

Jackson called Alex Odeh a “personal friend” who helped form the Rainbow Coalition that backed Jackson in his 1984 presidential bid. He called for the U.S. government to press the investigation, and said, “None of us are safe until the killers are captured.”

Paul McCloskey, a former congressman from Menlo Park, also praised Odeh, noting that Odeh had called PLO leader Yasser Arafat a “man of peace” in a television interview the night before the bombing. “Like many before him, (Odeh) died for saying a few words in the interest of peace and justice,” McCloskey said.

Odeh died because his words “were unacceptable to people who believe that all Palestinians should be branded as terrorists; indeed, that all Arab-Americans be branded as terrorists,” McCloskey said.

Jabara argued that the slaying was more than an attack on one man. It was, he said, an attempt to stifle the rights of all Arab-Americans. “Until justice is done,” he said, “liberty will not reign in this land.”