4 Charged in Gang Offer to Abet Libya Terrorism

Members of a notorious Chicago street gang were accused by the Justice Department on Thursday of conspiring to carry out terrorist attacks in the United States, including attacks against government buildings, in exchange for money from the Libyan government.

Federal officials say members of the El Rukns--a black gang of several hundred members who call themselves Sunni Muslims--allegedly contacted Libyan agents last March, offering to act as mercenaries. Several additional meetings took place in various parts of the country, federal authorities said.

“They offered to do whatever bidding the Libyan government might want,” FBI spokesman Bob Long said.

The U.S. attorney for northern Illinois, Anton R. Valukas, said that the investigation was continuing and that additional indictments were possible. Unnamed and unindicted co-conspirators are mentioned in the indictment.

No Attacks Made

No actual acts of terrorism were carried out, Long said, adding that undercover agents were monitoring the contacts. It is not clear from federal documents or government sources whether the gang and Libyan officials were able to strike a deal or whether specific targets were ever picked.

The alleged plot was broken up Aug. 5, when a task force of federal agents raided the gang’s heavily fortified headquarters on the city’s South Side and seized a rocket launcher, three subm1633904745smaller weapons.

None of the weapons were provided by the Libyans, Valukas said. He refused, however, to answer whether the Libyans provided funds to purchase the weapons, some of which were bought from undercover FBI agents.

The charges against the four gang members were detailed in a 47-count indictment returned Thursday by a special federal grand jury.

Two of those charged, Alan Knox and Tramell Davis, were arrested in the August raid and have been held without bond since. A third, El Rukn leader Jeff Fort, 39, is serving a 13-year prison term in a federal prison in Texas for cocaine trafficking. A nationwide FBI search is under way for the fourth person indicted, Melvin Mayes.

Gang Was Watched

The rocket launcher had been purchased from an undercover FBI agent, one of several who reportedly were monitoring the gang’s alleged activities as a result of their contact with the Libyans, sources said. Federal agents disabled the launcher before selling it.

The El Rukns are the current incarnation of the Blackstone Rangers, a street gang that attracted national attention in the 1960s when liberal organizations and the federal government gave the group millions of dollars in an effort to turn its members away from crime and into productive activities.

The El Rukn organization claims that it is an Islam-based religious sect.

“If El Rukn is a religious group, its sacraments are narcotics trafficking, intimidation, terror and human sacrifice,” Cook County prosecutor Richard M. Daley told the New York Times last December.

Several Hundred Members

Chicago police say the gang has several hundred members, many of them men in their 30s and 40s who joined when they were teen-agers. City and federal authorities say it is the most powerful street gang in Chicago, with involvement in murders, extortion, drug sales, robbery and black market weapons trafficking.

In recent years gang members have been recruited by Democratic politicians to help get out votes. In 1983 former Mayor Jane M. Byrne’s campaign paid almost $10,000 to chieftains of the gang.