Police Seeking to Link Arrest, Odeh Bombing

Federal authorities were trying to determine Thursday whether there is a connection between the arrest of a 59-year-old New York man and the 1985 bombing that killed Arab rights leader Alex M. Odeh in Santa Ana.

Murray Young, believed to be a member of the Jewish Defense League, was arrested at his East Meadow, N.Y., home early Wednesday, where the FBI confiscated evidence “of recent bombings and other terrorist acts which have previously been connected in this investigation to the JDL.”

Assistant U.S. Atty. Charles Rose in New York said Thursday that the Odeh case was “a subject of the investigation.”

However, spokesmen for the U.S. attorney’s offices in New York and Los Angeles stressed that they have “no physical evidence” to link Young to the Odeh bombing. They said a crime lab analysis of the material confiscated from Young’s home is pending.

Rubin Says Young Not a Member

Irv Rubin of Los Angeles, national chairman of the Jewish Defense League, said Thursday that Young is not a member of that organization.

“I have never met Murray Young,” Rubin said.

The Jewish Defense League, formed to combat anti-Semitism, is described in the complaint filed against Young as “an organization which has taken credit in the past for numerous bombings and other terrorist acts.”

But Rubin said Thursday, “We don’t take responsibility for any insane actions.”

Spokesmen for the FBI and U.S. attorney’s offices said the evidence would be analyzed in the FBI’s Washington crime lab to determine whether there is any tie with more serious bombings, including the Odeh case.

“It’s too early to tell, but at this time it does not appear that the information obtained (has) a direct connection to the Odeh bombing,” said Assistant U.S. Atty. J. Stephen Czuleger, who is attached to a multiagency anti-terrorist task force based in Los Angeles. “Based on my information at this time, there does not appear to be a direct connection.”

The Odeh bombing is the subject of an investigation by the Los Angeles-based task force, which includes investigators from the FBI, Los Angeles Police Department, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. attorney’s office.

Bomb Blast at Office

Odeh was killed Oct. 11, 1985, when a bomb tore through the door of the Santa Ana office of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, a grass-roots organization representing Arab-Americans by promoting and defending that community’s heritage. The explosion occurred just 12 hours after Odeh, the committee’s western regional director, had appeared on a late-night television news program to condemn terrorism and defend PLO leader Yasser Arafat as “a man of peace.”

When Young was arrested, FBI agents found a cache of firearms, including rifles, stun guns, an Uzi submachine gun, handguns, 15 canisters of mace, explosive powder and a silencer. A search of the residence also yielded apparent JDL membership lists and minutes of JDL meetings that included discussions of disrupting Soviet activities in the United States, according to Rose.

In a complaint filed in federal court in New York, authorities listed three suspected terrorist incidents they had been investigating that led to Young’s arrest.

Three Incidents Listed

The incidents were a Feb. 23, 1984, firebombing of a Soviet residential complex in the Bronx, a tear gas grenade thrown within the Metropolitan Opera House at Lincoln Center, New York City, during a performance by the Moiseyev Dance Company, a Russian ballet troupe, and a firebombing of Avery Fisher Hall the day of a scheduled performance by the Moscow State Symphony.

Young was charged in federal court with possession of a silencer without a serial number and faces up to 15 years in prison if convicted.

“Let them investigate all they want,” Rubin said. “I had nothing to do with it, and my organization had nothing to do with it. I don’t think they know what they are talking about.”

Times staff writer Bob Drogin contributed to this story from New York.