Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 14, 1995 TAG: 9501160058
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A2 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: MINNEAPOLIS LENGTH: Medium
Others were also quick to denounce the government's case against Qubilah Shabazz as a setup, including Farrakhan's own representative.
Shabazz was charged Thursday with trying to hire a hit man to kill Farrakhan, a rival of her slain father. Malcolm X's family has long believed Farrakhan had a hand in his 1965 murder.
The man Shabazz allegedly hired to kill Farrakhan was identified in news reports as Michael Fitzpatrick, a white former classmate of the 34-year-old woman.
``He is a set-up artist, who goes from group to group setting people up,'' said Steve Dennel, a former member of the militant Jewish Defense League who went to United Nations High School in New York City with Shabazz and Fitzpatrick.
Dennel said in an interview in New York that Fitzpatrick once belonged to the JDL and was used by the FBI to investigate peace groups.
``He was always suggesting illegal things,'' Dennel said. ``She was set up.''
In Chicago, a spokeswoman for Farrakhan suggested the nine-count federal indictment was part of a conspiracy to divide the black community.
``The question that must be raised by the black community today is whether or not in the light of our 440 years of suffering at the hands of our oppressors, we can reasonably believe that the United States Department of Justice desires to protect the life of Minister Louis Farrakhan,'' said Ava Muhammad, an attorney for the Nation of Islam.
Farrakhan wasn't at the news conference. Muhammad said he planned to make a statement Tuesday.
Court documents on file in New York show that Fitzpatrick tipped authorities to a 1978 plot by the JDL to bomb the Egyptian Tourist Office in Manhattan.
The documents show Fitzpatrick agreed to supply the dynamite in the bombing, which failed, and secretly taped a conversation between two JDL members that eventually led to their arrest.
Fitzpatrick reportedly was placed in the federal witness protection program and lives in St. Paul under a new identity. Shabazz moved to Minneapolis from New York in September.
Chaim Ben Pessach, one of the two men convicted after Fitzpatrick taped their conversations about the bombing, said Fitzpatrick is a ``very violent racist.''
``He hated black people,'' said Ben Pessach, who served 21 months in prison for 11 firebombings.
``That was one thing he felt very strongly about: black people were very easy to manipulate. But he never called them black people. He used the n-word. He despised black people, loathed black people.''
Ben Pessach said Fitzpatrick cut a deal to work with the FBI after he was arrested for bombing a Soviet bookstore.
U.S. Attorney David Lillehaug refused to comment Friday on the reports about Fitzpatrick.
by CNB