Israel Will Turn Over 2 Suspects in 1980 Bomb Death : Extradition: Police say the couple killed a woman in Manhattan Beach with a device intended for her boss. The pair face a murder trial in California, but they maintain that they are innocent.

The Israeli Supreme Court cleared the way Monday for the extradition to the United States of a former California couple wanted in the murder of an office secretary in Manhattan Beach more than 12 years ago.

Robert and Rochelle Manning are accused of using a bomb hidden in an electrical appliance to kill Patricia Wilkinson, a secretary at the Prowest Computer Corp. Investigators believe that the bomb was intended for Wilkinson’s boss, Brenda Couthamel.

Although never charged, Robert Manning also has been named the prime suspect in the 1985 bombing death in Santa Ana of Alex Odeh, head of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee’s western office. Rochelle Manning has been mentioned as a possible suspect.

On Monday, the Israeli Supreme Court denied the Mannings’ appeal of a lower-court decision authorizing their extradition to stand trial in California in the killing of Wilkinson.

Robert and Rochelle Manning and their teen-age daughter, Ilana, burst into tears when the ruling was announced. Outside the court, supporters of the couple cursed the judges. When photographers sought to take pictures of the distraught girl, the supporters pushed and shoved them until police restored order.

The Mannings, accused after investigators said they found their fingerprints on the carton in which the bomb was mailed and on the tape used to seal it, have argued that they are innocent of the charges and that Israel should not surrender them because they are Jews.

Israeli Justice Minister David Libai is expected to sign the extradition order this week. Etty Eshed, a ministry spokeswoman, said the Mannings will be returned to California as soon as arrangements can be made.

Investigators in Los Angeles County say the bomb that killed Wilkinson was mailed to her boss in reprisal for a business deal that went awry. They say that when Wilkinson opened the package on July 17, 1980, and plugged the device into a wall socket, it exploded.

Another defendant in the case, millionaire real estate broker William Ross, allegedly was embroiled in a business dispute with Couthamel over her negotiations to buy his house. The Mannings are accused of mailing the package, but the presumed motive for their involvement has not been made clear.

Five years after Wilkinson’s death, Odeh was killed when he opened the door to his Santa Ana office and triggered an explosive booby-trap.

The bombing on Oct. 11, 1985, took place a day after Odeh had defended the Palestine Liberation Organization in a televised interview. Robert Manning has been linked to the militant Jewish Defense League in the United States and the ultra-nationalist Kach movement in Israel.

Several months after Odeh’s death, the Mannings moved to Israel, where they have dual citizenship. They took up residence in Kiryat Arba, the Jewish settlement near Hebron on the Israeli-occupied West Bank that has been the center for hard-line ultra-Zionists.

When Rochelle Manning returned to California in June, 1988, she was questioned in the Odeh case. A few months later, while she was still in the United States, she, her husband and Ross were charged in the murder of Wilkinson.

Robert Manning remained a fugitive in Israel. In the months that followed, U.S. officials said Manning, a U.S. Army-trained demolitions expert, was also a suspect in Odeh’s death and a suspect in several other bombings linked to Rabbi Meir Kahane, the militant Jewish leader assassinated in New York in 1990.

In the waning months of 1988, Rochelle Manning and Ross went on trial in the Wilkinson case. In January, 1989, the jury said it could not reach a verdict, and both defendants were released.

Still subject to retrial because no verdict was reached, Rochelle Manning returned to her husband, who was living on the West Bank.

The Mannings were arrested in Israel in March, 1991, after a U.S. request for extradition so there could be another trial in the Wilkinson case.

Three months later, a Jerusalem court approved their extradition. Calling the decision a “death sentence,” Robert Manning appealed the ruling to the Supreme Court. The court’s decision Monday paves the way for the couple’s return to the United States. Whether Ross will be retried was not made clear.

Under terms of U.S.-Israeli extradition treaties, suspects can be tried only in the cases for which they are extradited. Thus, the Mannings cannot be tried in the United States for the Odeh murder.

Nevertheless, news of the extradition still pleased Alex Odeh’s brother, Sami Odeh, a real estate broker in Orange.

“I am happy to hear that they will be here to face trial in a murder,” Sami Odeh said. “And believe me, I can feel for the Wilkinson family and children. We all should have some measure of satisfaction when a criminal is convicted and put behind bars, no matter who the victim is.”

Odeh said he was told by investigators last October that his brother’s murder case had reached an impasse.

“They were trying to follow all the leads and need to talk to some people in Israel and are not getting any cooperation with the Israeli government,” he said.

In Washington, Gregory Nojeim, director of legal services for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, urged U.S. law enforcement agencies to pursue extradition in the Odeh case.

“We are hopeful that additional information will be forthcoming and, if appropriate, the pertinent law enforcement officials (will) make a separate extradition request in connection with the Odeh murder,” Nojeim said.

Parks reported from Jerusalem and Malnic from Los Angeles. Times staff writers Catherine Gewertz and Mark Landsbaum in Orange County contributed to this story.