JDL activist linked to California bomb plot killed in prison

[Christina Marie]

Posted on Sun, Nov. 06, 2005

JDL activist linked to California bomb plot killed in prison

ALEX VEIGA

Associated Press


LOS ANGELES - A Jewish Defense League activist imprisoned for his role in a plot to bomb a California mosque and the office of a Lebanese-American congressman was killed at a federal prison in Phoenix, an FBI spokesman said Saturday.

Earl Krugel, 62, was killed Friday evening in an assault at the Federal Correctional Institution, said Richard Murray, an FBI special agent in Phoenix.

Murray said federal authorities have opened a homicide investigation, but he declined to release further details.

Krugel had only been at the medium-security prison for three days, according to his sister Linda Krugel of Los Angeles.

"He was killed in cold blood ... this is disgusting," she said late Saturday.

Krugel's wife, Lola, said FBI investigators told her an inmate had struck her husband on the head from behind with a cement block.

"Earl never saw it happening," said Lola Krugel, also of Los Angeles. "He was exercising."

Krugel, a former dental assistant from Los Angeles' Reseda section, and late JDL leader Irv Rubin were arrested in 2001 and charged with conspiring to bomb the King Fahd Mosque in Culver City and a field office of Rep. Darrell E. Issa, R-Vista, who is Lebanese-American.

Krugel pleaded guilty in 2003 to one count of conspiracy to violate the civil rights of worshippers at the mosque and one count of carrying an explosive device in connection with a conspiracy to impede or injure an office of the United States.

Despite the plea - which at one point prosecutors had vacated - and statements by Krugel that he was a changed man, U.S. District Court Judge Ronald S.W. Lew sentenced him in September to 20 years in prison.

The reasons for the collapse of the initial plea agreement were sealed, despite a lawsuit by news organizations, including The Associated Press, to make the details public.

During the case, Krugel's lawyers noted that prosecutors were angered that his client withheld for several months the names of four people allegedly connected to the 1985 murder of Alex Odeh, the western regional director of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. Several former JDL members were suspected in the case, but no one was ever charged.

On Saturday, Krugel's wife contended that her husband's imprisonment was tied to Odeh.

"Earl did not deserve what he got. It was all political," she said. "It was all about Alex Odeh and my husband did not know anything about Alex Odeh. I'm devastated and I'm shocked that the system allowed this to happen."

Krugel's wife said she last spoke with her husband on Thursday and he was still adjusting to prison life.

"He was supposed to call me on Friday morning," she said. "When I didn't hear from him, I felt something was not right."

The Jewish Defense League was founded in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane. Kahane advocated the forcible removal of Arabs from Israel. He was assassinated in 1990 in New York.

JDL spokesman Brett Stone said he was stunned by Krugel's death. He noted that it came exactly three years after authorities say Rubin slashed his neck with a prison-issued razor blade and jumped 18 feet over a railing at Los Angeles' federal Metropolitan Detention Center. Rubin died nine days later.

"I'm really sad," said Stone, who believes Rubin's death was not a suicide. "It's shocking that's the second member of the Jewish Defense League in three years who has died in federal prison."


http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/13092834.htm

[Babmuk]

Good thing that he got killed.Ain't no muslims trying to put a bomb in synagogues.That's just not right to do so at place where ppl are praying,doesnt matter of a religion.

[twocost]

Good thing that he got killed.Ain't no muslims trying to put a bomb in synagogues.That's just not right to do so at place where ppl are praying,doesnt matter of a religion.

Yeah thats true. Things are real bad over seas with those two religions and when they come here they try to bring that hatred and violence to the United States. They act like they are putting in work for there country in another country. Kinda sad. Its unheard of for us but to them this stuff happens every single day. At least once a day.