Alex Odeh Slaying Case Reported Active : Probe: FBI tells widow of Arab-American leader that the 1985 Santa Ana bombing is being vigorously pursued.

The widow of Arab-American leader Alex Odeh, who died in a 1985 bombing in Santa Ana, said FBI officials gave her assurances Wednesday that they are still vigorously pursuing the case.

FBI officials met for an hour with Norma Odeh--whose husband had been the West Coast director of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee--and with current committee president Albert Mokhiber.

“I was satisfied. . . . It was enough that they were able to see us,” said Odeh, who has been publicly prodding the government to bring the two known suspects to trial.

Odeh was killed Oct. 11, 1985, when he opened the door to his Santa Ana office and tripped a wire that detonated a bomb. The incident occurred a day after he defended the Palestine Liberation Organization in a television interview.

The suspects, Robert and Rochelle Manning, are awaiting an Israeli court ruling about their extradition to the United States to stand trial in connection with a similar 1980 bombing, a Justice Department spokesman said Wednesday.

The Israeli High Court of Justice next month is to review the decision of a lower court, which held that the couple could be extradited for the 1980 crime, the Justice spokesman said.

The agency confirmed last year that the Mannings were suspects in the Odeh bombing after their arrest in Israel in connection with the 1980 bombing death of Patricia Wilkerson in Manhattan Beach.

The Mannings were American citizens in 1980 but became Israeli citizens before the 1985 bombing. Their Israeli citizenship clouds the legal issue of their extradition in connection with the 1985 crime.

In 1987, assistant FBI director Oliver B. Revell told the House judiciary subcommittee that the Odeh case was “the highest priority investigation in our domestic terrorism program, and it will continue to be until it is solved.”