ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701270079
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-6 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: SPOKANE, WASH.
SOURCE: Associated Press
THREE SPOKANE bombing suspects may be linked to the Olympic Park bombing, FBI officials say.
Three men charged with several bombings and bank robberies in the Pacific Northwest also are being investigated for possible links to the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, a newspaper reported Sunday.
However, while anonymous Justice Department and FBI officials told The Spokesman-Review that the Spokane bombing suspects are being investigated in the Atlanta case, they cautioned that they have other leads and no solid suspects.
``At this point, they are our strongest lead in the Olympics bombing,'' one Justice Department official told the newspaper. ``But there's a lot more work to do, and it's really early on in the investigation.''
The three men are being held without bail on charges of robbing banks and bombing one of the banks, an abortion clinic and an office of The Spokesman-Review.
They were arrested Oct. 8 near Yakima, Wash., after a military surplus dealer, encouraged by a $130,000 reward, reported that he recognized a parka worn by a masked gunmen in a bank surveillance photo.
The dealer, from Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, told the FBI he sold two of the men a military backpack and spoke with them about time-delay detonators, and also told them how to wash fingerprints off the backpack, the newspaper said.
The Olympic bomb - which killed a woman and injured 111 people July 27 - was hidden in a military backpack and triggered by a battery-operated timer.
The bombs in Spokane and Atlanta have some similarities: They were made with galvanized steel pipe and black powder. But while the Atlanta bomb used a timer, the Spokane bombs were set off by fuses lit by matches, the newspaper said. No one was injured by the three Spokane pipe bombs.
Telephone records may place one of the Spokane suspects, Charles Barbee of Sandpoint, Idaho, near Atlanta about the time of the Olympic bombing, the newspaper reported.
One federal official said there are ``some real interesting'' connections between the Atlanta bombing and the Spokane suspects, the newspaper said.
``They certainly haven't been eliminated,'' the official said.
Officially, the 100-member task force investigating the Olympics bombing would not talk about any possible connection to the Spokane bombings.
On Sunday, Justice Department spokesman Bill Brooks in Washington, D.C., told The Associated Press he could not comment.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: AP file/1995. Charles Barbee is shown with a rifle nearby CNBSandpoint, Idaho.