After the INS agent joined his investigation, Knight learned that Hamide was about to be sent a letter of invitation to become a full-fledged U.S. citizen -- the final step in the immigration process. Acting on Knight's information, the INS withheld the invitation.
Shehadeh, too, was close to becoming a naturalized citizen when, on Jan. 26, 1987, two men and a woman, all dressed in gray, came to his Long Beach house. They announced they were from the INS. As he opened the door, Shehadeh's first, vaguely formed thought was that these immigration officers had come to welcome America's newest citizen.
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Friday July 01, 2005 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 64 words Type of Material: Correction
The L.A. 8 -- A time chart that accompanied an article in Wednesday's Section A about a long-running terrorism case known as that of the L.A. 8 made reference to a "Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine fundraiser." Whether money raised at the 1986 event went to the Popular Front organization is a matter of dispute and the central issue in the case.
That they would do this at dawn, he recalls thinking, did seem strange.
*
As they remember it now, all these years later, the morning of the arrests unfolds in a series of surreal, dream-like scenes. "I remember every detail," said Hamide. He remembers how the officers and agents burst into his Glendale apartment with guns drawn. They showed him a subpoena. He did not understand. It seemed to indicate that they had come to seize magazines.
"So I gave them my magazines. That's funny," he recalled, without a trace of mirth. "That is really very indicative of this case. They came in with a subpoena for a magazine. No baseball bats, no guns, no whatever. Because they knew: I ain't got none."
Aiad Khaled Barakat recalls the knock on his door. He looked down from an upstairs window and saw a lone Glendale police officer on his porch. There was a problem, the officer explained. They needed to talk.
"The minute I turned the key to unlock the door," Barakat said, "the door went like a bulldozer. They pushed it like 10 feet back and people came in, about 15 or 18. A lot of them."
Shehadeh remembers the sweat that rolled down the chin of the agent who held him in a headlock. His 3-year-old son had burst into the front room, wailing, and another agent placed him on the couch. Shehadeh tried to wriggle free, wanting to comfort the boy. The agent tightened his grip.
"Don't be stupid," Shehadeh remembers him warning. "You don't want your son to watch you get hurt."
Shehadeh was told that he belonged to a terrorist organization and was under arrest. They handcuffed him and led him outside. A police helicopter wheeled low over the house, and that is when the thought clicked: He had witnessed this scene before.
