November 13, 1993

Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin suffered a potentially serious political blow today when his army announced that five captured Palestinians suspected of killing a Jewish settler two weeks ago had identified themselves as members of Yasir Arafat's faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization. The announcement came as Mr. Rabin was courting United States support in Washington. He and President Clinton both demanded that Mr. Arafat condemn the violence, although they sidestepped a question of whether Israel should break off peace negotiations if the P.L.O. remained silent. [ Page 7. ]

The United States Department of Justice and the office of the New Jersey Attorney General each began criminal investigations today into claims that Republicans funneled money into urban areas to suppress the black vote in the Nov. 2 election for governor. An official in the Clinton Administration with knowledge of the case said today that within the next few days, Federal prosecutors would be likely to issue subpoenas compelling officials on the campaign team of Christine Todd Whitman, the Governor-elect, to turn over financial records.

Three men -- a Roman Catholic priest, an illegal Irish immigrant and a retired Rochester police officer -- were arrested last night in the robbery of $7.4 million from an armored car service in Rochester last January, law-enforcement sources said. It was the fifth-largest armored car robbery in American history, and Federal officials last night recovered what they called "substantial" amounts of cash hidden in four locations in New York City, including the homes of two suspects. The officials would not say exactly how much was found.

Two defendants in the World Trade Center bombing case tried to commit suicide in their cells in a Federal detention center in Manhattan on Thursday, defense lawyers said. Neither of the two men, Ahmad M. Ajaj and Bilal Alkaisi, was seriously injured. Both cut themselves with razors, and Mr. Alkaisi tried to hang himself, the lawyers said.

For more than a year, a fraudulent financial scheme involving about three million Romanians paid 800 percent profits to investors who deposited money for three months. These newly rich spent lavishly on previously unimaginable luxuries like refrigerators, washing machines and even vacations abroad. But for the last several weeks, the Ponzi-style pyramid scheme, which economists say has pulled in the equivalent of $1 billion to $5 billion, has failed to pay back anything. Tens of thousands of Romanians, who live in one of Eastern Europe's grimmest economies, face losing their meager savings, while the scheme's founder is said to have stashed away as much as $40 million. Government officials, fearful of riots and protests, are reluctant to stop it.