Court Opens Way for Armenian’s Deportation

A federal appeals court has cleared the way for the possible deportation of a community leader from Little Armenia who was once convicted of plotting to transport dynamite to bomb the office of a Turkish diplomat.

The decision reverses the ruling of a federal judge who granted citizenship to Viken Yacoubian after the Immigration and Naturalization Service refused his application, in part because of his past terrorist activities.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said the judge had abused her discretion and should have left the matter for the INS to decide. Yacoubian, the principal of the Rose and Alex Pilibos Armenian School in Hollywood, could face new INS proceedings.

A teenager when he committed the crime, the 39-year-old Yacoubian eventually became a highly regarded member of the Armenian American community in Los Angeles. A co-defendant, Viken Hovsepian, 42, also could be deported.

“Whether the actions of their youth justify deportation under our immigration laws is a question for the political branches of government. Judicial sympathy only functions within prescribed parameters of the law,” wrote appellate Justice Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain.

Yacoubian, Hovsepian and two other men were arrested in November 1982, after FBI agents seized dynamite in the baggage claim area at Logan International Airport in Boston. The explosives had been flown from Los Angeles as part of a plan to bomb the Philadelphia office of the Turkish consul general.

Yacoubian served a two-year prison term. His record was eventually expunged under the federal youth corrections act.

Yacoubian’s attorney was not available for comment.