Woman Linked to Marxist PLO Faction at Hearing

Fifteen days after the arrest of a Kenyan woman on charges of overstaying her visa, a government prosecutor surprised defense attorneys Tuesday by accusing her of subversive activities linked to a Marxist Palestinian group. The accusation appeared almost identical to those which have been leveled against six Los Angeles area Arab immigrants, including her husband, arrested at the same time on Jan. 26. The government is seeking to deport all seven.

“I am surprised,” U.S. Immigration Judge Ingrid K. Hrycenko said during the hearing for Julie Nyangugi Mungabh, 28, an accountant whose lawyers said had been in the United States on a work visa since August, 1975. “It’s been 15 days.”

Mungabh is married to Khader Musa Hamide, 32, alleged by the government to be the California leader of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a militant faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

All of the defendants, who face a deportation hearing tentatively set for next Tuesday and who thus far have been imprisoned without bond, have denied any connection with the Popular Front.

Security was unusually tight for Mungabh’s deportation hearing in the downtown Federal Building. Five armed guards were stationed inside the courtroom, prompting Judge Hrycenko to ask: “Do we have to have all these guards?” Two left the room.

The public was kept behind barriers posted several feet down a corridor leading to the tiny courtroom where the hearing was held. Reporters had to pass through metal detectors.

Mungabh, dressed in a knit pullover sweater, blue jeans and sneakers, was escorted into the courtroom with her hands chained behind her back. She was unchained for the hearing, during which the defense argued that it needed more time to prepare its case.

Dan Stormer, lead defense lawyer for the seven defendants, later told reporters that the unexpected accusation against Mungabh was “absolutely consistent” with a recently disclosed Immigration and Naturalization Service paper which proposed swiftly deporting aliens deemed to be engaging in subversive activities.

Stormer said the government may have changed the charge because “they’re afraid we might have come up with a legitimate defense” on the visa accusation.

INS attorney Melainie Fitzsimmons declined to respond to a question by Stormer on whether the government contemplated a closed deportation hearing where even defense attorneys would be excluded on national security grounds. Fitzsimmons declined after the hearing to say why the government waited more than two weeks to present the new accusation.