BOSTON -- Federal officials have charged a 20-year-old California man with plotting to blow up the offices of the honorary Turkish consul general in Philadelphia.
Steven J. Dadaian of Canoga Park, Calif., was arrested last week in Boston and charged with interstate transportation of explosives after a suitcase containing dynamite was found at Logan International Airport, officials said.
Three other men were arrested in Los Angeles on the same day.
The FBI alleged in federal court in Los Angeles Thursday that the explosives were intended to be used on the offices of honorary Turkish Consul General Kanat Arbay.
A conspiracy charge, based on an affidavit filed in Los Angeles and Boston, was filed against Dadaian at a hearing Thursday before U.S. Magistrate Lawrence Cohen at which bail was reduced from $1 million to $500,000.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert S. Mueller III told Cohen Dadaian has 'possible' ties to the Justice Commandos of the Armenian Genocide, a group seeking vengeance for the massacre of Armenians by the Turks in 1915. Dadaian's attorney said the charge was 'fanciful.'
The Armenians claim as many as 1.5 million of their people died during a war with the Ottoman Empire, but Turkish officials have strenuously denied charges of genocide and dispute the figures on the number of those killed.
The Commandos have claimed responsibility for the killing of Orhan Gunduz, the honorary Turkish Consul General of New England, last May in Somerville, Mass., Dadaian has not been charged in that killing.
Police said they found five sticks of dynamite, a detonator cap, an electronic arming device and a timer in a piece of luggage allegedly left by Dadaian at Logan Airport last Friday.
The luggage, listed under the same of V. Lopez, arrived aboard a Northwest Airlines flight from Los Angeles. Another suitcase, listed under the name of Steven Tataian was also aboard the flight, authorities said.
Dadaian picked up the suicase listed for Tataian, but left the other behind, police said.
He was arrested by FBI agents at a hotel in the city's Bay Village section a short time later and has been held since then.