Local News in Brief : Subversion Case Rebuttal

A year to the day after immigration and FBI officials arrested eight Los Angeles-area immigrants on subversion charges, the eight alleged that the government never had a case against them and should throw in the towel.

“It’s an unfounded prosecution that should be stopped,” Khader Musa Hamide, one of the defendants, told reporters at the American Civil Liberties Union’s Los Angeles headquarters.

The eight--seven Jordanians and a Kenyan--are awaiting resumption of their deportation hearing which is on hold while a constitutional issue is being decided by an immigration review panel. There were no criminal charges, but the eight were accused in Immigration Court of subversion for supporting a Marxist branch of the Palestine Liberation Organization.

The government has overhauled its prosecution team, placing Robert Baumbaugh, director of the Justice Department’s Office of Immigration Litigation, in charge of the case. A government official, who asked not to be named, said “more of an effort” would be made this year to deport the eight.