Extradition of Mannings Could Take a Year, Israel Says

An official of the Israeli Ministry of Justice said Monday in Jerusalem it could take up to a year for Ronald and Rochelle Manning to be extradited to the United States to stand trial in the bombing death of a Manhattan Beach woman.

The Mannings, who immigrated to Israel from Los Angeles in the mid-1980s, were arrested Sunday in connection with the 1980 death of Patricia Wilkerson, a secretary at a computer firm who was killed when she inadvertently received an explosive device that had been mailed to her boss.

The Mannings, who live in the Israeli-occupied West Bank territory, have been under indictment in the case since 1988. Rochelle Manning stood trial in 1988, after she temporarily re-entered the United States, but was freed after a mistrial, while Robert remained a fugitive in Israel. U.S. prosecutors said that because Rochelle Manning was not acquitted, she can be retried.

The Manhattan Beach bombing was believed to have stemmed from a business dispute between Wilkerson’s boss and a real estate broker over the purchase of a house.

The Mannings are accused of having mailed the explosive.

Confusion developed over word of the Mannings’ arrest during the weekend when Israel Radio apparently reported incorrectly that they had been charged in the 1985 bombing death of Alex Odeh, then the head of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s office in Santa Ana.

Although the couple have been named as suspects in that case, neither has ever been charged and the extradition efforts involve only the Wilkerson case.

Furthermore, Israeli officials said, international law dictates that the Mannings can be tried in this county only on the charges for which they are extradited.

Diplomatic disputes over the Mannings’ citizenship and the State Department’s reluctance to recognize Israel’s authority in the occupied West Bank have slowed extradition talks in the Manhattan Beach case since 1988.

But one hurdle was removed late last year when the State Department withdrew its objection to an arrest of the Mannings in the West Bank, said Michael Ahern, assistant inspector in charge of the U.S. Postal Inspector’s Los Angeles office, the agency that handled the Wilkerson investigation.

Etty Eshed of the Ministry of Justice in Jerusalem said appeals and hearings could take a year.