New U.S. Charges Are Filed Against Two Palestinians

Two-and-a-half years after they were arrested and jailed for alleged subversion, the Justice Department has filed new charges against two Los Angeles-area Palestinians, an American Civil Liberties Union attorney disclosed Monday.

“At the 11th hour, the government has filed new charges against our clients in a last-ditch attempt to bolster its faltering case,” said Paul Hoffman, legal director of the ACLU’s Los Angeles office.

Like the original case, the new charges in Immigration Court are being brought under the McCarthy-era McCarran-Walter Act, and are designed to deport the aliens, Khader Hamide, 35, of Los Angeles, and Michel Shehadeh, 33, of Long Beach. No criminal charges were ever filed against them.

Hoffman said the government charged Hamide and Shehadeh with “membership in, or affiliation with, an organization that advocates or teaches the duty or necessity or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of government officials.”

The organization referred to by the government is the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, an affiliate of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The PFLP has a history of terrorist activities overseas and in Canada.

Judge Steps In

Last December, U.S. District Judge Stephen V. Wilson overturned the McCarran-Walter Act’s political provisions under which Hamide and Shehadeh were charged, declaring them unconstitutional. The government has appealed to the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

As a result, their immigration cases were placed on hold by U.S. Immigration Judge Ingrid K. Hrycenko until the federal appeal is decided. Hrycenko’s decision to delay the deportation hearings also was appealed by Washington.

Wilson, however, did not have before him the new charges, which were transmitted to the immigrants’ lawyers last Friday night by federal attorney James A. Hunolt, a member of the Justice Department’s Washington team prosecuting Hamide and Shehadeh.

Hoffman contends, however, that the new charges are no different than the old ones, and simply came from a paragraph in the McCarran-Walter Act preceding the sections that Wilson declared unconstitutional.

‘An End Run’

Another lawyer for the aliens, Marc Van Der Hout of San Francisco, said this maneuver amounts to a ploy by the government to circumvent the decision by Wilson, who declared that aliens have the same free speech rights as American citizens.

“This essentially is a desperate attempt on the government’s part to do an end run around the clear ruling of the district court,” Van Der Hout said.

Government prosecutors could not be reached for comment.

Hamide and Shehadeh--along with five other Palestinians and a Kenyan--were arrested in January, 1987, and jailed for about two weeks on subversion allegations under the McCarran-Walter Act, a law that has been used to deport or exclude aliens deemed undesirable. At that time, they were accused of advocating world communism, totalitarian dictatorship and the unlawful destruction of property.

All eight, who then faced deportation proceedings, denied the allegations.

Washington subsequently changed the subversion allegations against Hamide and Shehadeh, alleging that they advocated “the unlawful damage, injury or destruction of property” under another McCarran-Walter section. The new charges are in addition to this, immigration attorney Van Der Hout said.

Three of the aliens facing visa violations have since received, in effect, waivers to remain in the United States. But three others still face visa violation action. Their cases are scheduled to continue today in Hrycenko’s courtroom.

Today’s immigration proceeding almost certainly will serve as a forum for the immigrants’ lawyers to ask Justice Department attorneys why the new allegations were filed, Van Der Hout said.