El Cajon

Jury selection began Monday in the third sanity trial of a Lebanese man convicted last year of the 1985 slayings of five relatives in El Cajon.

Toufic Naddi, 48, of El Cajon was convicted June 8, 1988, of five counts of first-degree murder in the June 1, 1985, slayings of his wife, her parents, her cousin and her brother-in-law.

The jury in his first trial deadlocked 11 to 1 that Naddi was sane when he shot his relatives, and a mistrial was declared Aug. 9 in his second trial because of remarks by the prosecutor in his closing argument.

Jury selection in this third trial is expected to last six weeks because potential jurors will be interviewed about their feelings about people from the Middle East and on the death penalty.

Naddi could receive the death penalty if the jury decides he was sane at the time of the killings.

San Diego Superior Court Judge Terry O’Rourke, who is hearing the case for the third time, declared the mistrial when Deputy Dist. Atty. Bob Boles told jurors that Naddi’s decision to kill was comparable to acts by the terrorists in Lebanon who executed American hostage Lt. Col. William Higgins. Because Naddi is Lebanese, the judge found the remarks prejudicial to the jury.

The victims were members of a wealthy and prominent family from Amman, Jordan. They were Aida Naddi, 26; Habib Sabbagh, 73; Lillian Sabbagh, 58; Michael Sabbagh, 38; and Osama Mashini, 38.

Mashini was visiting the Sabbagh house. He was an actor and comedian in Jordan.