Alex Odeh Assassination Probe Demanded by Civil Rights Groups, Rep. Loretta Sanchez [View all]

[Jesus Malverde]

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Jewish Voice for Peace and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee are among the civil rights groups pressing the U.S. Justice Department to renew the investigation into Palestinian-American civil rights leader Alex Odeh's 1985 assassination by bomb blast in Santa Ana.

An online petition the groups launched seeking support for opening the probe has received 10,000 signatures.

"Whenever a leader for a civil rights organization is killed, it is the responsibility of our country as a whole--and a civil rights community as a whole--to stand up and demand that their killers be brought to justice and to ensure that the U.S. Department of Justice does everything in its power to close the case," NAACP President Ben Jealous told reporters in a conference call Monday (via the Associated Press).

Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) in June sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder calling for a renewed probe, and she has since urged her fellow lawmakers to sign on. One of them, Rep. John Conyers (D-Michigan), said Monday he wants the House Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations to convene a hearing on the bombing.

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/2013/10/alex_odeh_loretta_sanchez_naac.php