LOS ANGELES : Bail Denied to Suspect in Fatal Mail Bombing

A federal judge refused Tuesday to grant bail to Robert Steven Manning, who faces trial for a 1980 mail bombing that killed a Manhattan Beach secretary.

Manning, who moved to the occupied West Bank in Israel a decade ago, fought a U.S. extradition order in the Israeli court system for three years before being returned to the United States last month.

A Fairfax High School dropout who became active in the Jewish Defense League, Manning is accused of sending a mail bomb to a Manhattan Beach computer firm owned by an Arab. It killed a secretary, Patricia Wilkerson, 32.

Manning’s lawyers asked U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian to overturn a ruling denying bail and to place him under house arrest with an electronic tracking anklet. But Tevrizian said Manning’s delaying tactics in Israel suggested he was a flight risk.