JDL
Activist Imprisoned for Role in Plot to
Bomb California Mosque Killed in Arizona
Prison
JDL
Member Imprisoned in Bomb Plot
Killed
By ALEX VEIGA Associated Press Writer
LOS ANGELES Nov 5, 2005 –
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 in an assault Friday evening at the Federal
Correctional Institution, said FBI agent
Richard Murray.
Murray wouldn’t release further details but said federal authorities had opened a homicide investigation.
Krugel’s wife, Lola, of Los
Angeles said FBI investigators told her an inmate had struck her husband on the head from behind with a cement block.
David
Irving comments:
THE mysterious prison deaths of both Irv
Rubin and his associate
Earl Krugel need to be independently investigated and explained, in our view. We already expressed the belief that the “suicide” of Rubin seemed to flout the available evidence.
US prisons are a violent place, but for lightning to strike effectively twice in the same place, at the leadershiup of the
JDL (which US authorities havee formally branded a terrorist organisation) seems to defy belief. Whatever we may think of Rubin and Krugel, and what they were up to that led to their arrest — and I well recall
Rubin and his fellow thugs threatening me with death, screaming “I will come back and kill you” in front of witnesses at a Los Angeles exhibition a few years
back — it may well be that political prisoners will in future feel safer in
Guantánamo than in the federal prisons of the United
States.
“Earl never saw it happening,” she said.
“He was exercising.”
He had been at the medium-security prison for three days, according to his sister Linda Krugel of Los Angeles.
Krugel, a former dental assistant from
Reseda, 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
Republican Rep. Darrell E. Issa, 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.
He was sentenced in September to 20
years in prison.
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.
Copyright
2005 The Associated Press.
[Fuller version:]
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 in an assault Friday evening at the Federal
Correctional Institution, said FBI agent
Richard Murray.
Murray wouldn’t release further details but said federal authorities had opened a homicide investigation.
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,” she said. “He was exercising.”
He had been at the medium-security prison for three days, according to his sister Linda Krugel, also of Los
Angeles.
Earl Krugel, a former dental assistant from Los Angeles, 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 Republican Rep. Darrell E.
Issa, 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, he
was sentenced in September to 20 years
in prison. The reasons for the collapse
of an 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 said prosecutors were angered that his client withheld for several months the names of four people allegedly connected to the
1985 murder case of Alex Odeh, a regional director of the American Arab
Anti-Discrimination Committee. Several former JDL members were suspected in the case, but no one was ever charged.
“Earl did not deserve what he got,”
Krugel’s wife said Saturday. “It was all political. 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.”
She said she last spoke with her husband 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 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 a federal detention center in Los Angeles. 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.” .
Also: JDL
Member Imprisoned in Bomb Plot Killed –
Yahoo! News
Flashback:
June 14, 2004
U.S. court voids plea deal with Kahane activist
By Reuters LOS ANGELES –
A militant Jewish activist must stand trial after all over a 2001
plot to bomb a Los Angeles area mosque and other Muslim targets after a judge on
Monday voided a plea deal.
Earl
Krugel, 61, a member of the Jewish
Defense League, had previously agreed to plead guilty to conspiracy to violate the civil rights of worshipers at the mosque and to a weapons charge linked to explosives that prosecutors said were meant for the Los Angeles office of
Lebanese-American Congressman Darrell
Issa. The bomb plot was never carried out.
Krugel (far right in courtroom sketch) and the
Jewish Defense League chairman Irv
Rubin were charged in December 2001
with conspiracy to destroy the mosque but
Rubin committed suicide in jail a year later while awaiting trial. Krugel later agreed to plead guilty and was expecting to be sentenced on Monday to 10-20 years in prison. But a federal court judge in
Los Angeles said Krugel had breached the plea agreement. The judge did not give details.
The judge set a November trial date for
Krugel, saying he would now be tried as well on counts of attempted arson, possessing a destructive device and soliciting someone to commit a crime –
charges which effectively carry a life sentence. According to court documents,
Krugel and Rubin said they targeted Issa because he is an Arab-American and they believed Arabs needed a “wake-up call”.
The Jewish Defense League was founded in 1968 by Rabbi Meir Kahane, who before his assassination in New York in 1990
advocated the expulsion of all Arabs from
Israel and the West Bank and Gaza
Strip.
on this website:
Jewish
Terrorist [Krugel] Gets Prison:
Plotted with other Jews to bomb
congressman’s office, mosque; suspected
in torching of revisionist
office
Torrance
Fire Tied To JDL Member
The
estate of Jewish Defense League leader
Irv Rubin filed a $5 million wrongful
death claim against the U.S.
government
in connection with his apparent suicide
at a federal detention center.
Irv
Rubin in Suicide Attempt
David
Irving: A Radical’s Diary
JDL
leader’s attorneys want separate trials
for defendants
Defense
attorney wants racist remarks
thrown
out
Trying
to Blow up a Mosque? Meet the JDL
fanatics | Los
Angeles Times softens the profile of
JDL terrorist Irv Rubin | LA
grand jury indicts JDL members Rubin,
Krugel in bomb plan | The
Irv Rubin
story: Never say never target=”_blank”>IHR
again | FBI
spells Finis to Thug’s Career: Militant
JDL Chief Irv Rubin Arrested after
Gunpowder Plot | Australia
reports | Full
text of charges |
recalls JDL’s record
Irving, Radical’s Diary on Rubin:
“He
seems to have enjoyed a life inspired
by hatred of others whom he regards as
inferior — the very archetype of a
nazi. | “From
the Irv Rubin bust to the Stern Gang:
The Rich History of Jewish
Terrorism”