Eight Accused of Scheme to Aid Kadafi Regime

FBI agents on Wednesday arrested eight men involved in pro-Libyan activities in the United States on charges that they had diverted funds to promote the Moammar Kadafi regime, and a federal prosecutor said one of them has been linked to a potential assassination plot against a “high government official of the United States.”

Other federal sources identified the potential target as former Marine Lt. Col. Oliver L. North, who as a National Security Council aide helped plan the 1986 U.S. bombing of Tripoli.

Another of those arrested, a government source said, is suspected of providing his country with lists of U.S. government workers as possible targets for Libyan retribution after the bombing, which reportedly took the life of an infant daughter of Libyan strongman Kadafi.

10-Year Term Possible

But officials familiar with the evidence said they doubt the government will be able to lodge more than the illegal diversion charge, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

The disclosure of the alleged assassination plot came at a magistrate’s hearing for six of the suspects in nearby Alexandria, Va., as U.S. Atty. Henry E. Hudson reacted to indications that the suspects would be released without bond. He gave no details of the plot or its target, but Magistrate Leoni Brinkema promptly ordered the men held without bail until a hearing Friday.

At congressional hearings on the Iran-Contra affair a year ago, North testified that he had been alerted by the FBI in April, 1987, that a threat had been made against his life by Abu Nidal, the Palestinian terrorist leader who has strong ties to Kadafi.

The threat came in a videotaped interview in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley in which a Nidal aide said that North had been placed on a hit list because of the bombing, along with other Americans involved in anti-terrorist activities. North testified that as a result he accepted a home security system that cost $15,984 from retired Air Force Maj. Gen. Richard V. Secord, now a co-defendant of North in the Iran-Contra case.

From April 8 to Oct, 1, 1987, North was constantly guarded by agents from the Naval Investigative Service and subsequently has been accompanied by private security agents.

At the hearing, Hudson said one of the men charged, Mousa Hawamda, owner of the Manara Travel Agency in Washington, was involved in “a potential plot to assassinate a high government official of the United States.”

Holds Two Passports

Hawamda, 42, holds both U.S. and Jordanian passports, Hudson said.

Hudson also charged that Saleh Mohomed Guima Rajhi, a Moroccan citizen who is another of the suspects, had provided the Libyan government with a list of federal officials who may have been involved in the Libyan bombing, possibly as retaliation targets.

The prosecutor described the case as rare and sensitive and said it involved national security.

Six of those arrested were identified as members of the Peoples Committee for Libyan Students, a nonprofit corporation incorporated by the Libyan government in 1981 after the closing of its embassies here to provide financial support for Libyan students in the United States and Canada.

Fund Diversion Claimed

The defendants were alleged to have diverted funds from the organization, which had been licensed by the Treasury Department, to pay for travel of non-Libyans to take part in pro-Libyan demonstrations in the United States and to go to Libya, in violation of federal regulations barring such travel.

Most of the diversions allegedly were accomplished by false billings by the Manara Travel Agency or through refunds on airline tickets, said W. Douglas Gow, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Washington field office.

Besides Hawamda and Rajhi, 32, a former PCLS member, those arrested were Mahdi Mohammad Abousetta, 35, of Arlington, Va., a PCLS financial officer; Ramadan Taher Belgasem, 33, of Arlington, a PCLS cultural officer; Manhal Ben Mohamed, 23, of Falls Church, Va., a Manara travel agent; Milad Shibani, 34, of Falls Church, PCLS chairman; Salem Omar Zubeidy, 39, of Ann Arbor, Mich., a former PCLS chairman, and Adel Ali Sennosi, 30, of Denver, a student sponsored by the Libyan government at the University of Colorado and a former PCLS director.

The case began more than a year ago with information provided by a confidential source on the apparent diversion violation, buttressed by subsequent details from another confidential source, an official familiar with the evidence said.

The investigation was a joint effort involving the Treasury Department’s office of foreign assets control and the Denver, Detroit and Washington offices of the FBI, with assistance from the Internal Revenue Service, the Customs Service and the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the FBI said.