Muharem Kurbegovic

Muharem Kurbegovic (born June 1, 1943) is a Yugoslav–American aerospace engineer and domestic terrorist who was convicted for committing a string of lone wolf arsons and bombings in Los Angeles, California in 1973 and 1974, his most notable act being the 1974 Los Angeles International Airport bombing that killed three people and injured 36 others.

Under the alias "Isaac Rasim", Kurbegovic's attacks began with targeted arsons relating to a personal vendetta against judicial officials for a criminal charge, eventually escalating into demands to repeal laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and sex; he also claimed his motive was to "undermine and erode the foundation of Western Civilization, which is the Holy Bible". After the airport bombing, Kurbegovic was nicknamed the "Alphabet Bomber" because of his stated plan to bomb locations in an order that would spell an anagram of his nonexistent terrorist group "Aliens of America" ("A" for airport, "L" for locker, etc.).

After a two-week investigation following the airport bombing that involved numerous mostly-unfounded bomb threats, the potential use of nerve gas against high-rise towers and the United States Congress, and an alleged assassination plot targeting President Gerald Ford, Kurbegovic was arrested in 1974 and was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1980. where he found work in the aerospace industry, regularly changing roles and companies in the course of his work. He pretended to be a deaf-mute to dodge the draft during the Vietnam War, communicating at work through written notes, and was generally well-respected by his colleagues.

The lasting consequences of his arrest led to Kurbegovic developing a personal vendetta against judicial officials, namely the municipal court judge who oversaw his trial and the police commissioners who denied his permit appeal. He strongly disdained American laws relating to immigration, naturalization, and sex, which he viewed as being responsible for his predicament, and sought to have them repealed. He was also angered by the 1970 shootings of two Mexican resident aliens by two LAPD officers, allegedly by mistake, and wanted the officers to be arrested and charged for the incident.

On July 4, 1974, arson fires burned three apartment buildings in the Greater Los Angeles area, one in Santa Monica and two in Marina del Rey. No one is known to have been harmed in the fires. KFWB, an all-news radio station, received a phone call from Kurbegovic identifying himself as Isaac Rasim, an SLA "field commander", who claimed responsibility for the fires; the call came either before That night, Conrad Casler, city editor for the Los Angeles Herald Examiner, received a phone call from Kurbegovic in which he claimed responsibility in the name of Aliens of America, and confirmed his identity by correctly identifying the bomb's locker number as "T 225"—information that had not yet been made public. The LAPD's bomb squad evacuated 1,000 people in and around the Greyhound station and found a 25-pound satchel charge, the most powerful explosive they had handled up to that time, in locker 625. Using a rudimentary pulley system, the bomb squad managed to extract the charge and safely dispose of it at a bomb range. In custody, Kurbegovic alternated between acting deaf-mute and speaking, and continued to make several unfounded threats, such as a bomb allegedly planted among the thermonuclear weapons at a United States Air Force installation.

Alleged presidential threat According to chemical weapons experts Neil C. Livingstone and Joseph D. Douglass in their 1984 paper CBW: The Poor Man's Atomic Bomb, as well as LAPD Detective Arleigh McCree, in mid-August 1974 Kurbegovic stated he would travel to Washington, D.C. to assassinate newly sworn-in President Gerald Ford and outgoing President Richard Nixon with a nerve agent that he proceeded to describe in detail, leading to the United States Secret Service and the Central Intelligence Agency joining the investigation. Working out of the White House basement, federal investigators conducted an intensive manhunt, and after extensive psychological profiling, database searches, and tape recording analyses using CIA audio forensics equipment, Kurbegovic was allegedly identified within 18 hours of federal involvement, although the rest of the investigation was conducted primarily by the LAPD. His trial was delayed for years on grounds of mental incompetence. At his trial, Kurbegovic chose to defend himself and frequently exhibited odd behaviors such as claiming to be the Messiah and having outbursts at the judge and prosecutors. In October 1980, after an eight-month trial, Kurbegovic was convicted of 25 counts of murder, arson, attempted murder, possession of explosives, and exploding a bomb. In November 1980, Kurbegovic was sentenced to life in prison.

Kurbegovic was frequently moved around to different mental institutions and high-security prisons; in 1985 he was held in San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, and in 2003 he was held in Pelican Bay State Prison.