Plane Suspect Denies Threat to Americans

An Iranian immigrant accused of making terrorist threats aboard an Air Canada flight denied in court Friday that he had used “words like that.” His lawyer described him as a successful Los Angeles businessman with a drinking problem.

Javid Naghani appeared in U.S. District Court one day after his alleged outburst aboard a Los Angeles-to-Toronto flight, which prompted the pilot to turn back to Los Angeles International Airport under escort by two F-16 fighter jets.

U.S. Magistrate Jennifer Lum ordered Naghani held without bail and scheduled his arraignment for late next month.

“Everything that happened here has to be viewed in light of the events that occurred on Sept. 11,” federal prosecutor Dan Rubinstein told the court. He argued that Naghani was a danger to the community and was likely to flee if released.

Naghani, a slight man with a goatee who was wearing knee-length denim shorts and sneakers with the laces removed, attempted to speak to Lum before being quieted by his attorney, a federal public defender.

“I didn’t say the words like that,” Naghani told the magistrate. “I swear by mother.”

According to a federal complaint that charges him with interfering with a flight crew, the 37-year-old Woodland Hills resident burst into an angry diatribe after being admonished for smoking in a restroom aboard the plane. One flight attendant told an FBI investigator that Naghani had said, “ ‘Kill all of the Americans,’ or words to that effect.”

The same flight attendant, Roman Dubejsky, also reported that Naghani said, “If you give me to the authorities, then my people will be mad.”

The alleged threats apparently terrified crew members who were already nervous after attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The Air Canada jumbo jet was escorted back to Los Angeles by two fighter jets and, once on the ground, was stormed by FBI agents who detained Naghani, his wife, Rosa Hinojos, and an elderly man who was mistakenly identified by some passengers as Naghani’s father. All but Naghani were later released.

The older man, who did not wish to give his name, said Naghani was no terrorist. “He was just drunk,” the man said in a telephone interview Friday as he waited to re-board the flight, which had been delayed 24 hours.

Speaking in Persian, the 79-year-old man said Naghani had drunk at least two glasses of red wine before takeoff and brought another glass onto the plane, telling a skeptical flight attendant that it was grape juice.

He confirmed that Naghani appeared to be smoking in the restroom and began yelling angrily after flight attendants made him stop.

“He was talking bad about Americans,” the man said.

A sketchy portrait of Naghani began to emerge from legal records, interviews and court statements. He appears to have found both a modicum of success and a good bit of legal trouble since moving to the United States.

According to Rubinstein, Naghani built a criminal history that begins in 1988 and includes misdemeanor convictions for reckless driving, illegal possession of a dagger and resisting arrest. The reckless driving conviction was part of a plea bargain after an arrest for drunk driving, Rubinstein said.

Naghani, who lives in a Woodland Hills home he purchased seven years ago, owns at least two businesses, according to records and his attorney: a janitorial cleaning service called Cleaning of America Inc. and a Chevron gas station that is under construction in Hawthorne. His lawyer, Deputy Federal Public Defender Richard Novak, said Naghani got a $1.7-million loan from Chevron to build the station.

Novak said Naghani has an alcohol problem and suffers from depression.

No one was in the small Canoga Park office of Cleaning of America on Friday. People at neighboring businesses said they knew nothing about its owner. At the Chevron station, a construction worker acknowledged that Naghani was the owner, but referred any other questions to his construction company.

On the Air Canada flight, Naghani allegedly told flight attendants, “You do not know who I am” and said, “I will sue you for millions.” Court records show he sued the owners of Carl’s Jr. restaurants in July 1998 after he and three other men allegedly became ill after eating at one of the fast-food outlets.

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Times staff writers Jean Merl, Soraya Nelson and Zanto Peabodycontributed to this report.

Airports: Up to 1,000 National Guard soldiers will be at 31 state airports by next weekend.