7 Tied to PLO Terrorist Wing Seized by INS

Seven alleged members of a terrorist wing of the Palestine Liberation Organization were taken into custody Monday by federal agents in Los Angeles County on charges of violating U.S. immigration laws.

Authorities identified the seven foreign nationals, whom the government is seeking to deport, as members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Marxist offshoot of the PLO that has claimed credit for terrorist attacks around the world.

The FBI, reportedly because of concerns in Washington about the impact on American hostages in the Middle East, was unusually cautious in announcing the arrests, made by agents of the Immigration and Naturalization Service as a result of an FBI investigation that started last year.

Change of Plans

As FBI officials in Los Angeles and Washington conferred on how to handle the situation, they first scheduled a news conference, then delayed it for an hour, and finally canceled it.

Later, they announced the arrests by reading a statement to reporters over the telephone, but declined to give details about the group or even to use the words “terrorist” and “arrest.”

One FBI source, however, told The Times that the investigation began in March, after U.S. bombing raids on Libya, when George Habash, the Syrian-based leader of the Popular Front, vowed reprisal attacks against U.S. citizens around the world, including targets inside the United States.

The seven people who were arrested in Los Angeles County on Monday, their hands and legs shackled, were brought before U.S. Immigration Judge Ingrid K. Hrycenko where they were described as “security risks” by Immigration District Counsel Elizabeth Hacker and INS prosecutor Melainie Fitzsimmons, who is in charge of the case. Both Hacker and Fitzsimmons refused to comment on the case.

The seven suspects, six Jordanians and a Kenyan, were arrested Monday morning at their homes without incident, one FBI official said. No weapons were found.

The FBI stressed that they were picked up on immigration charges only and did not allege that any of them had been involved in anti-U.S. activities. One top FBI official said no criminal charges are planned “at this time.”

Seven Suspects Named

Among those arrested were Khader Musa Hamide, 32, a Jordanian living in Glendale, who was identified by the FBI as the California leader of the Palestinian liberation splinter group, and his wife, Julie Nyangugi Mungabh, 28, of Kenya.

Also arrested were Aiad Khaled Barakat, 26, of Glendale; Ayman Mustafa Obeid, 22, Amjad Mustafa Obeid, 23, and Michel Ibrahim Nasif Shehadeh, 30, all Jordanians from Long Beach, and Naim Nadim Sharif, 26, a West Bank Jordanian living in Northridge.

One of the lawyers representing the seven, Gary Silbiger, described his clients as a mix of professional people and students.

“I have no idea” why they were arrested, he told a reporter. “I thought we went through this in the McCarthy era,” referring to the 1950s, when Sen. Joseph R. McCarthy conducted Senate hearings on alleged Communist infiltration of the State Department and armed services.

Hamide, Silbiger said, is a local businessman who has lived in Southern California since 1971. Hamide and his wife were placed in Los Angeles jails pending a bail hearing Wednesday, he added.

Held in San Diego

The other five, he said, were transferred to a detention facility in San Diego because they were thought to be too dangerous to be incarcerated in Los Angeles, Silbiger said he was told by federal officials.

The seven suspects were apprehended on an order to show cause why they should not be deported. The order charged that each has “been a member of or affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an organization that advocated the economic, international and governmental doctrines of . . . world communism through written or printed publications. . . . “

Silbiger was sharply critical of the government’s actions.

“These people are hostages,” he said at the downtown Federal Building after meeting with prosecutors. “The government is using this to retaliate for events happening in other countries. But these seven have absolutely no connection with the taking of American hostages in other countries.

“It’s the most base type of stereotyping that they happen to be from a certain part of the world.”

Arrests Described

A man who identified himself only as Adib and who said he was the brother of one of those arrested, Naim Nadim Sharif, said his brother has been in the United States since 1978 and for the past three years or so had worked in a San Fernando Valley hardware store.

“He’s a nice, quiet guy,” Adib said. “I don’t think he belongs to any group.”

He said agents arrived at their Northridge house about 7 a.m. and would only say that his brother might be facing deportation.

“I let them in. They asked me for Naim and I told them he was sleeping. I went in there to wake him up,” the brother said. The agents followed him into Naim’s bedroom, he said.

“I said, ‘Naim, wake up,’ and then he opened his eyes and the gun was pointed at him. . . . My little daughter was watching . . . and she was crying,” he said. “She kept following me around, with the officer telling me to stand there and sit there.”

FBI officials declined to give any reason for first calling a news conference and then canceling it, but one source said the decision was made because of concerns that publicity might have jeopardized negotiations for release of American hostages in the Middle East.

An ‘Internal’ Decision

The FBI’s chief spokesman in Los Angeles, Fred Reagan, said only that the decision to cancel the news conference was “a decision made internally.” Reagan declined to give any further details as to why the suspects were arrested at this time.

Besides the seven alleged members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine who appeared before the immigration judge Monday, the FBI said two other Jordanian immigrants were taken into custody by immigration officials.

They were identified as Ghabah Hawwari, 24, and Haitham Tawari, 19. One government source said it was not known if they had any affiliation to the group nor whether they would also be required to appear in court on Wednesday.

Times staff writers Gabe Fuentes, Jack Jones in Los Angeles and Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this article.