- A Jewish extremist who plotted to blow up a Los Angeles
mosque and the office of a US congressman of Lebanese descent has been
sentenced to 20 years in jail.
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- Earl Krugel was arrested in 2001 with another leader
of a group called the Jewish Defence League, Irv Rubin, who died in jail
in an apparent suicide.
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- Krugel, 62, admitted the charges. The sentence was the
heaviest he could receive under his plea bargain.
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- He apologised to the court for causing "sadness,
pain and sorrow".
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- The plot was discovered before any blasts took place.
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- US District judge Ronald Lew said Krugel's crimes were
"promoting hatred in the most vile way".
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- 'Wake-up call'
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- FBI agents arrested Krugel and Rubin at their homes in
November 2001.
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- Investigators seized bomb-making equipment they believed
was destined to be used in an attack on the King Fahd mosque in Culver
City, a suburb of Los Angeles.
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- The pair were charged in December 2001 with conspiring
to bomb the mosque and send explosives to the offices of Congressman Darrell
Issa, who is of Lebanese Christian descent.
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- Krugel pleaded guilty to conspiracy to violate the civil
rights of worshippers at the mosque and to a weapons charge linked to the
plot against the congressman.
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- In return, he was to escape trial on more serious charges
related to the bomb conspiracy.
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- Rubin died in November 2002 awaiting trial. Prison authorities
said he slashed his throat with a knife and then either fell or threw himself
from a prison walkway.
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- Prosecutors argued that Rubin and Krugel had wanted to
send a "wake-up call" to Arabs and to show that their group was
"alive in a militant way".
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- The group was founded in 1968 by a far-right US rabbi,
Meir Kahane, who advocated the expulsion of all Palestinians from the West
Bank and Gaza Strip.
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- Kahane was assassinated in New York in 1990.
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