Deportation Cases Against 8 Delayed

Federal cases against eight Los Angeles-area aliens accused of being national security risks were delayed for perhaps months Thursday when lawyers agreed to let an appeals board decide whether the government obstructed justice by not producing a key witness ordered to testify by an immigration judge.

At the same time, immigration lawyers agreed to survey several government agencies, including the FBI and CIA, to determine whether the telephones of the immigrants’ lawyers have been tapped by the government, as alleged by the defense.

The agreement between government and defense lawyers came after U.S. Immigration Judge Ingrid K. Hrycenko rebuked Immigration and Naturalization Service attorneys on Thursday for disobeying her order of May 11 to produce an INS investigator for court questioning. When the investigator did not appear, Hrycenko ended the deportation hearings, forcing the government to refile its charges against the eight the next day.

The aliens--seven Jordanians and a Kenyan--were arrested in January and charged with supporting the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a Mideast-based group with a history of terrorist activities. All have denied the charges. Two of the defendants, who the government alleges are PFLP ringleaders in California, face deportation under a subversion section of the McCarran-Walter Act; the others are charged with visa violations.