Murder Suspect Overdoses, Delaying Extradition to U.S.

The extradition of an American-Israeli wanted on murder charges in a 1980 letter-bomb killing in California was delayed at the last minute Tuesday after he complained of chest pains and then fainted.

Officials said Robert S. Manning, who has bitterly fought his return to the United States for trial, had apparently taken an overdose of sleeping pills to thwart extradition.

Manning and his wife, Rochelle, are suspected of involvement in sending a booby-trapped appliance to a computer firm in Manhattan Beach in 1980. A company secretary was killed.

The Mannings, who live in an extremist Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, were arrested in 1991 following an extradition request from the United States. An appeal by Rochelle Manning was still pending in court.

Robert Manning was taken to Ben Gurion International Airport outside Tel Aviv early Tuesday, but FBI agents and airline representatives refused to take him aboard the TWA flight to Los Angeles because of concern for his health during the 19-hour trip.

Taken to Ayalon Prison hospital in Tel Aviv, Manning was found by physicians to have taken about 20 sleeping pills in what Israeli officials described as an attempt to prevent his extradition; he was immediately placed under 24-hour guard, officials said.

Manning, 41, had complained of chest pains and weakness early Tuesday; a medic at Ramle Prison, where he had been held pending extradition, gave him a sedative, according to a police account of the incident. He collapsed a short time later and his pulse dropped.

Security officials told state-run Israel Radio that they were investigating the possibility that friends had given him the sleeping pills to induce the collapse. Manning had a 90-minute farewell with his wife at Ramle Prison Monday morning, and supporters had visited him last week.

In a final appeal at 3 a.m. Tuesday, Manning’s attorney had asked the Israeli Supreme Court to postpone the extradition; the court rejected the request without further hearing. Manning had appealed twice before and been turned down by the court.

Yosef Ba’gad, a member of the Israeli Parliament from the far-right Moledet Party, said he would petition the court again on Manning’s behalf, saying he had new evidence that Manning would be denied kosher food in American prisons and thus would be unable to observe the strict precepts of Orthodox Judaism. Manning had made such a plea, but the court rejected it, citing American promises of adequate facilities to follow Jewish laws and traditions.