Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic Genocide News

Armenian-U.S. activist jailed on dynamite charge
by Reuters
Posted: Monday, January 29, 2001 01:41 am CST

CLEVELAND, Jan 25 (Reuters) - An Armenian-American activist has been sent to jail for storing dynamite, closing a case that U.S. prosecutors said grew out of his alleged anti-Turk activities.

Nationally known as a spokesman for the Armenian community, Mourad Topalian, 57, was sentenced to 37 months in prison on Wednesday. He pleaded guilty last year to storing 100 pounds (220 kg) of dynamite in a rented locker near a preschool day-care center.

Prosecutors had originally alleged he was linked to a 1980 bombing of the Turkish U.N. mission in New York. Armenians hold Turkey responsible for the deaths of 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923.

At the time of his plea, federal prosecutors dropped other charges, including a count of conspiracy, against Topalian, who is from Beachwood, Ohio, and a former president of a community college.

At a hearing in a crowded, heavily guarded room on Wednesday, Judge Ann Aldrich of the U.S. District Court ignored Topalian's appeal for leniency, saying he recklessly risked the lives of the day-care center's children and others in the neighborhood.

The dynamite was stolen from a Michigan mine not long before the bombing in New York. He rented the locker under the name of a former wife in 1980, prosecutors said. The dynamite was discovered in 1996 when the abandoned locker was checked for unclaimed material.

Turkey denies that genocide of Armenians took place early last century and insists both sides suffered heavy casualties during partisan fighting on the collapse of the Ottoman empire.

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