Search for Suspects in N.Y. Bombing Prompts Reopening of Kahane Case

As the search continues for more suspects and motives in last month’s bombing of the World Trade Center, the New York City police have decided to reopen their investigation into the 1990 assassination of Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Jewish groups, who urged a federal investigation following the acquittal of El Sayyid Nosair for the murder, are now saying that had that crime been properly investigated, the trade center bombing might have been averted.

The police had originally concluded that Nosair had acted alone when he shot Kahane in a Manhattan hotel on Nov. 5, 1990. But they are now looking into the possibility that the shooting was part of a conspiracy.

Nosair, who is serving time in prison for convictions on lesser charges in connection with Kahane’s shooting, was recently notified that he would be charged in a disciplinary hearing with plotting an escape.

The charge is based on false Nicaraguan passports and birth certificates found in his and his family’s names in the apartment of Ibraham Elgabrowny, a cousin of his who is a suspect in the Feb. 26 trade center explosion, which killed six and injured more than 1,000.

All three suspects under arrest for the bombing have been linked to Nosair. They observed his trial and protested American support for “evil Zionism” outside the courthouse.

In the latest development, The New York Times reported Tuesday that investigators have raised the question of whether one suspect, who has not been arrested and may have fled the country, was directly involved in the Kahane assassination, with the intention of driving a getaway car.

Nosair was in fact convicted of hijacking a taxi at gunpoint right after the assassination. The failure of Nosair to plot his getaway was seen as an oddity in the case by those who believed eyewitness claims that Nosair shot the rabbi.

AN IRANIAN LINK?

The suspect, an Egyptian-born German citizen named Mahmud Abouhalima, is reportedly a taxi driver who may have been a driver for Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the blind Islamic fundamentalist cleric who has preached violence against the West in both Egypt and, since 1990, in the United States.

Nosair and some of the trade center suspects were known to have worshipped at the Al Salam Mosque in Jersey City, where Rahman delivered impassioned sermons advocating, among other things, the violent overthrow of the Egyptian government.

Rahman was tried and acquitted in Egypt for involvement in the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. U.S. officials have sought to deport him from this country.

Newsweek magazine reported that intelligence agencies have evidence that money was funneled from Iran to Rahman. Iran is seen by both American and Israeli officials as being a leading sponsor of international terror.

In other evidence for possible foreign backing for the trade center blast, several thousand dollars were reportedly transferred from Germany into an account held by Mohammed Salameh and Nidal Ayyad, two of the suspects who have been arrested.

The third suspect under arrest for the New York bombing, Elgabrowny, was arrested when trying to stop officers from executing a search warrant in his apartment, formerly occupied by Nosair and also listed by Salameh as his address on his New York driver’s license.

Salameh and Elgabrowny were expected to be indicted this week.

No clear motive has yet been revealed for the bombing, whose sixth fatality, Wilfredo Mercado, was found Monday under tons of rubble.

BOMBING ‘COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED’

CNN has reported that Nosair has a personal injury suit pending against the Port Authority, which owns the World Trade Center, and New York City. He filed a claim in 1987 after he reported burning his hand while doing electrical work at the Port Authority passenger ship terminal on the Hudson River.

“It’s a shame it took the death of six people and the trauma of the World Trade Center to bring back the investigation (into the Kahane murder), but still it’s better late than never,” said Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League.

Said New York State Assemblyman Dov Hikind: “The great tragedy of all this is that the entire thing could have been avoided,” had the Kahane investigation been thorough.

“Why were they so quick to decide (that the assassination) was the work of one individual, when so many things were pointing in different directions?” asked Hikind, a longtime Kahane supporter and a critic of the police investigation.

“We had a feeling there were many questions unanswered,” said David Pollock, associate executive director of New York’s Jewish Community Relations Council, “and we did convey that to law-enforcement officials.”

The JCRC, like the ADL and Hikind, called for a federal investigation into the case immediately following the sentencing. The Justice Department “made a general announcement that they were reviewing whether to do anything,” said Pollock, “but they never announced if there was an investigation until right now.”

Said Mike Guzofsky, international coordinator of Kahane Chai, a successor organization to Kahane’s Jewish Defense League, “One thing is clear: Had the police and the FBI properly investigated the Kahane assassination, they probably would have been onto this terrorist cell.”