Bombing Trial Snarled in Treaty Issue

The possible return of a former Jewish Defense League activist to stand trial in a fatal 1980 mail bombing in Manhattan Beach is bound up in the previously undisclosed and politically explosive renegotiation of the extradition treaty between the United States and Israel, sources in both governments revealed Tuesday.

Legal changes here, necessary to clearly cover wanted Israeli citizens under the treaty, are so hotly opposed by the political right that “obviously, nothing will be done before the elections,” a well-placed Israeli government source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Israeli national elections are scheduled for Nov. 1. A victory by the political right, which according to public opinion polls has been gaining strength throughout the year, would presumably foreclose any such legal changes for the foreseeable future.

An immediate beneficiary of this imbroglio, it appears, is Robert S. Manning, 36, a self-styled demolition expert and charter member of the Jewish Defense League’s West Coast chapter. He is now living in Kiryat Arba, one of the most militant Jewish settlements in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Indicted in Secretary’s Death

Manning was indicted early this month in the killing of Patricia Wilkerson, a secretary at a Manhattan Beach computer marketing firm who, on July 17, 1980, opened a package addressed to her employer. Following instructions in a letter accompanying the package, Wilkerson plugged what appeared to be a tape recorder into an electrical outlet and was killed instantly when the device exploded. Authorities have stated no possible motive for the bombing.

Manning has also been identified as a suspect in four 1985 bomb attacks, including the killing in Santa Ana in October of that year of Arab activist Alex Odeh and the slaying two months earlier in Paterson, N.J., of Tscherim Soobzokov, an alleged Nazi war criminal.

Manning’s wife, Rochelle, also has been charged in Wilkerson’s death. She was arrested in late June at Los Angeles International Airport. Police investigators allegedly found Rochelle Manning’s fingerprints on a note attached to the device that blew up and killed Wilkerson, and Robert Manning’s prints on the paper it was wrapped in.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Nancy Wieben Stock said she would seek extradition of the former JDL activist so that he can be tried in the Wilkerson case, but no such request has been received.

It had been thought that the main impediment to extradition was Manning’s residence in the occupied West Bank, which the United States does not recognize as part of Israel. An extradition request, it is said, might be interpreted as establishing a diplomatic precedent.

While agreeing that the territorial issue is a complicating factor, U.S. and Israeli officials told The Times that the principal problem is the issue of Israeli nationals, who are exempt from extradition under a 1977 Israeli law.

U.S. officials, admittedly “disturbed” by the situation, argue that when the newly elected, rightist Likud government changed Israeli law in 1977 to prohibit the extradition of its nationals, it effectively overturned a key feature of the 1962 extradition treaty between the two countries.

The treaty states specifically that the country requested to extradite an individual may not refuse because of that person’s nationality. And as one American official put it, “We don’t think they can change their obligations unilaterally.”

Another complicating factor is that the 1977 Israeli law states that the exemption from extradition does not apply in cases where the alleged crime took place before the suspect became an Israeli citizen.

Question of Timing

There is apparently some debate over whether Manning had become an Israeli citizen at the time of the 1980 Wilkerson killing. It has been reported that he moved here permanently in the late 1970s or in 1980. Israel automatically grants citizenship to any Jew who requests it under the country’s Law of Return.

But even if the Wilkerson killing predates Manning’s citizenship, the series of 1985 bombings, including the killing of Odeh, clearly occurred afterward. Thus if Manning were extradited for the Wilkerson killing, the United States would be prohibited from prosecuting him in the other cases.

“You can’t prosecute except for the offense for which you’ve requested extradition,” an Israeli government source said.

Meanwhile, Robbie Sabel, legal adviser to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, confirmed that “low-intensity” negotiations have been under way between Washington and Jerusalem for at least 18 months in an effort to update the extradition treaty.

Sabel said the discussions were initiated by the United States in connection with an overall review of law enforcement problems between the two countries, and that Israel agreed in principle to a change.

Sabel conceded that the revisions sought by the United States would require changes in the 1977 Israeli law.

The sensitivity surrounding the issue of extraditing Israeli citizens was reflected in the political storm raised here nearly two years ago when France requested that Israel return for trial William Nakash, who was wanted for the 1983 killing of an Arab in the French town of Besancon. Nakash fled to Israel and became a citizen under the Law of Return.

His case became a right-wing cause celebr e. Justice Minister Avraham Sharir of the rightist Likud Bloc tried unsuccessfully to defy a Supreme Court order that Nakash be returned to France.

“There’s a sort of feeling here that you can’t hand a Jew over to be tried by Gentiles,” a senior government official said. “It has to do with 2,000 years of Jewish history, of Jewish persecution at the hands of Gentiles.”

One of the changes being discussed in the extradition treaty between the United States and Israel would address this concern to some extent by permitting an extradited criminal to be returned after trial to serve the sentence in the country of his or her citizenship.

Setting a Precedent

Another Israeli concern about amending the treaty, Sabel said, is that any change in the provision dealing with how it is to be applied to nationals would set a precedent. And while Israel may have less concern about the fate of Israeli citizens tried in the United States, that might not be so in cases involving other countries.

There has been a steady trickle of non-Israeli nationals, and at least one naturalized citizen, extradited by Israel at U.S. request since 1981, legal sources in both countries said. Usually, Sobel said, the wanted party waives his or her rights under the treaty and returns voluntarily.

There are two current cases of Israeli nationals who are being prosecuted here for offenses committed in the United States, according to an attorney in the U.S. State Department who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Nonetheless, the attorney said in a telephone interview, it is “a very strong U.S. policy to encourage the extradition of nationals,” and that U.S. law permits the extradition of American nationals.

Israel is not the only country that prohibits the extradition of its nationals, the State Department attorney noted. Others include France, West Germany, the Scandinavian countries and most of Latin America.

“It’s fairly common in civil-law countries to prohibit the extradition of their nationals,” said the U.S. government attorney. “But it’s a policy we oppose across the board, and we’re trying to get lots of countries to change their laws. There’s no reason Israel would be any different.”

In addition to Manning, three other American-born Israelis are under investigation in the United States in connection with the 1985 bombings. They are Keith Fuchs, 24, originally from Los Angeles, Bart Silverman and Andrew Green. They, too, are apparently protected by the 1977 Israeli law that prohibits the extradition of Israeli nationals.

All four are reportedly close to the radical anti-Arab Kach party of right-wing Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the JDL before emigrating to Israel and being elected to the Knesset, Israel’s Parliament.

The Jerusalem Post on Monday quoted unidentified military sources as confirming that despite his indictment in the United States, Manning recently served as a reservist in the Israeli army. The sources refused to say where he had been stationed, the Post reported, but Manning previously told a reporter from the Dallas Morning News that he had spent 30 days on duty near Nablus, in the occupied West Bank.