"LA Eight" Face Minor Charges After 2-1/2 Years of Litigation

By Pat McDonnell Twair

After 27 months of litigation, the federal government's efforts to convict the "L.A. Eight" are winding down. Charges have been dropped against five of the defendants, and the remaining three face only charges of minor visa infractions.

The new charges levied against some members of the group, consisting of seven Palestinian resident aliens and the Kenyan-born wife of one of them, are in stark contrast to those filed almost two and a half years ago when all eight were arrested during an early morning raid and imprisoned as "national security risks." They were accused then of being members of a terrorist organization, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). According to defense attorney Marc Van der Hout, their arrests were to be the first step in implementing a secret government contingency plan for "alien terrorists and other undesirables" aimed at incarcerating, in an Oakdale, Louisiana, camp, Iranian and Arab nationals deemed to be potential terrorists.

All eight denied being members of the PFLP, however, and their subsequent three-week imprisonment drew national attention as well as protests from former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark, civil rights attorney Leonard Weinglass, and other defenders of civil liberties.

Last December, US District Judge Stephen Wilson ruled that the McCarran Walter Act, under which the group was arrested, was unconstitutional. On May 3, Judge Wilson said he presumed that his "declaration of unconstitutionality of the McCarran-Walter Act would be the death knell for prosecution against Hamide and Shehadeh [the groups leaders]. If a statute is declared unconstitutional, how can the government proceed as if the court didn't make a decision?"

Two days later, Immigration and Naturalization Judge Ingrid Hrycenko agreed and ruled that deportation efforts against Hamide and Shehadeh be closed until Judge Wilson's decision could be reviewed by the appellate court.

Hamide's wife, Julie Mungai, accused by the Immigration and Naturalization Service of working in the US with an expired work permit, was given amnesty under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986.

Efforts to deport Amjad Obeid, a Palestinian carrying a Jordanian passport, are unlikely to succeed, declared Judge Hrycenko, because of Obeid's marriage to an American citizen.

Amjad Obeid's brother, Ayman, has been accused of working without permission on a student visa. His case will be opened on July 27, as well as the case of Bashar Amer. Amer has been accused of committing "fraud against the US," a charge which Judge Hrycenko said reflects "sloppiness" on the part of federal prosecutors. The crime of which Amer, a student, now is accused is that of carrying only eight semester hours of university studies instead of the 12 required of holders of student visas.

The atmosphere during three days of court hearings in May had changed significantly since the case first went to court in February of 1987, after the Los Angeles chapter of B'nai B'rith allegedly gave their names to the FBI. Then, as television reporters pursued them, the defendants were shackled, manacled, and led by armed guards through a private staircase to Judge Hrycenko's chambers. During the three days of hearings in May, they circulated freely from courtroom to photocopy machines in order to prepare for their lawyers summaries of the trivial charges still outstanding against only three of them.

A noteworthy fact to emerge from the lengthy litigation was that, according to an INS official, US government officials failed to obtain search warrants prior to searching the suspects' homes and seizing personal property.

Pat McDonnell Twair is a free-lance writer based in California.