Cleveland Plain Dealer: CCC official an unlikely terrorist, friends say
Katy Pearce
Cleveland Plain Dealer
CCC official an unlikely terrorist, friends say
Sunday, October 17, 1999
By MARK GILLISPIE and TOM DIEMER
PLAIN DEALER REPORTERS
It has been hard for people to reconcile their
impressions of Mourad "Mo" Topalian as a successful
executive and lobbyist with the portrayal by federal
prosecutors of Topalian as a terrorist.
Topalian, 56, of Shaker Heights, was indicted and
arrested last week on federal conspiracy, explosives
and firearms charges that maintain he was a leader in
a terrorist group that, during the 1980s, bombed
Turkish buildings and businesses in the United States
to bring attention to the Armenian Genocide of 1915.
A tall, robust man with a full head of wavy black hair,
Topalian seemed unshaken during a court appearance
Thursday afternoon. He gave polite responses to U.S.
Magistrate Judge David S. Perelman's questions. Even
after he spent several hours in a holding cell, his
charcoal gray suit was unwrinkled, his black loafers
well-shined. The only thing out of place was the open
collar of his crisp white shirt. By the time he walked
out of U.S. District Court after being freed on bond, a
red silk tie completed the ensemble.
Staff members at Rainbow Babies & Children's Hospital
have seen a vulnerable and sometimes teary-eyed
Topalian. They know him as a frightened father whose
young daughter is fighting a rare form of leukemia.
Janice Guhl, a hospital spokeswoman, was part of a
bone marrow drive for 6-year-old Alique Topalian.
"I can tell you the man was very warm and engaging,"
Guhl said. "You immediately liked him."
Topalian, a vice president at Cuyahoga Community
College, was born and reared off E. 116th St. in
Cleveland, near John Adams High School. His parents
were forced to flee eastern Turkey to escape
persecution by the Ottoman Turks. During what
Armenians refer to as the Genocide of 1915, an
estimated 1.5 million Armenians were killed and millions
more were forced to resettle in Syria and Lebanon.
An independent Armenian state formed after the
collapse of the Soviet Union, but longstanding enmity
between Armenians and Turks is as alive today as it
was 85 years ago. Armenians still teach their children
the tragic lessons of Turkish oppression in the same
way that Jews tell their children about the Holocaust.
During Topalian's childhood, his preoccupation was
sports, not politics. Sam Mirakian, who hosts a weekly
Armenian radio show on the college station at John
Carroll University, said he always thought Topalian
was an outstanding third baseman and that he should
have played professionally.
"If I ever saw a terrific glove man, he was it,"
Mirakian said. "He was like a vacuum cleaner."
Mirakian, who said he is 70 and closer to the age of
Topalian's brother Michael, has known the family all of
his life. He could not recall what Topalian's father did
for a living but said the family lived modestly and was
hard-working.
"They came here with just the clothes on their back
and they did very well," Mirakian said.
Mirakian, like many who know Topalian, is shocked by
the accusations that he was involved with a terrorist
group. "I can't picture him doing whatever they talked
about," he said.
But the accusations did not surprise Margarite
Davidian, who has known Topalian since the early
1990s. She said she knew he traveled often to
Washington and was considered an influential man in
the Armenian-American community. Topalian is
chairman of the Armenian National Committee of
America, a political action committee that lobbies on
behalf of Armenian causes.
"I knew how deeply he was involved," she said. "But I
didn't realize he was bombing places."
She said she met Topalian when she and her former
husband became active in the Armenian Community
Center & Holy Cross Church on Wallings Rd. in North
Royalton. Church members, she said, are actively
involved with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation,
a political group that holds seats in the Armenian
Parliament.
Terrorist experts say the federation formed a terrorist
group in the mid-1970s called Justice Commandos of
the Armenian Genocide. Later renamed the Armenian
Revolutionary Army, the group claimed responsibility
for some of the bombings listed in Topalian's
indictment.
Davidian, whose family owns House of Davidian, a
carpet store in Chagrin Falls, said she considered
many of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
members at Holy Cross to be radical in their support
for Armenian causes. The allegiance to the federation
has created a rift within Greater Cleveland's Armenian
community, which numbers about 1,000 people,
Davidian said. Members of St. Gregory of Narek
Armenian Church in Richmond Heights have distanced
themselves from the political activities at Holy Cross,
she said.
She said her ex-husband applied to join the federation
but was rejected. She said she was not sure why.
During that time, she said, she and her ex-husband
visited Topalian's previous home in Chester Township
several times for dinner. They found him warm and
cordial.
"Mourad is a very personable man," Davidian said.
Topalian is married to Michele Seyranian, the mother
of Alique. He has five children from a previous
marriage.
Topalian and his attorneys have declined to comment
since the arrest Thursday.
George Asadorian, chairman of the local Armenian
Revolutionary Federation organization, scoffed at the
notion that his political party sponsors terrorism here
or anywhere else, portraying the organization as a
social club that holds raffles, not hostages.
Asadorian said Topalian has been "a good guy" for the
Armenian community. "He's lobbied and gotten results
over the years."
Experts say that Armenian terrorist groups have
become largely dormant since the late 1980s. In the
preceding 15 years, dozens of Turkish diplomats were
assassinated, and a number of buildings were
bombed. The investigation of Topalian began after a
cache of explosives and firearms were found in a
rented storage locker in Bedford in September 1996.
Employees opened the locker after not receiving a
rental payment for more than six months. Some of the
explosives and firearms had been in it since it was
first rented in 1980.
Nearly two decades have not dulled Dogan Uluc's
memories of a Saturday morning in October 1980. The
New York bureau chief for Hurriyet, a national Turkish
newspaper, he was in his office at the United Nations
Building when a car bomb exploded in front of the
nearby Turkish Mission to the U.N.
The indictment said Topalian sent people on a
surveillance mission before the bombing and that he
personally took 5 pounds of explosives to New York
City for the car bomb.
Uluc said the blast sounded as if a piano had been
dropped on the ceiling above him. The explosion
injured four people, but had it been detonated 15
minutes later, when people were milling about the
streets after the conclusion of temple services across
the street from the Turkish mission, the toll could
have been much higher, Uluc said.
"Police at the time told me it was a lucky explosion,"
Uluc said.
The federal investigation of Topalian has prompted
CCC officials to take another look at his resume. A
spokeswoman issued a statement Friday that the
school would have a consultant review the hiring of
Topalian, who was granted a paid leave of absence
while he fights the criminal charges.
Topalian told a Plain Dealer reporter in 1993 that he
was involved in a number of political campaigns,
including that of former U.S. Sen. John Glenn. But Jeff
Sanger, a former deputy campaign manager, said
Friday that a check of campaign databases found no
trace of him.
His resume also says he testified before Congress
between 1993 and 1995. A search of a witness list
and congressional testimony in the Congressional
Information Service database shows that while
members of the Armenian National Committee of
America testified seven times between December
1988 and April 1996, Topalian is not listed as having
addressed the committees.
Topalian also has said he was nominated by President
Clinton to serve on the advisory board of directors of
the National Holocaust Museum from 1995 to 1997.
Officials at the museum said they had never heard of
him.
A government official in Washington who asked not to
be identified said Topalian made numerous visits to
the White House to lobby on behalf of Armenian
causes. Former Rep. Edward Feighan, for whom
Topalian once was a campaign volunteer, said
Topalian had "involved himself in the national
[Democratic- Party and the Clinton campaign."
A White House spokesman could not confirm the
number of visits Topalian made to the White House
but said it was common for representatives of ethnic
committees to meet with the National Security
Council and other staff members.
"I know there are articles saying he's been here many
times, and that may be," said White House spokesman
Jim Kennedy. "But that doesn't mean he's high profile.
That's not to minimize him, but there are hundreds of
people in these groups that pass through here on a
routine basis."
Feighan said that Topalian was passionate in his
support for issues important to Armenia but that he
never heard him say anything about the use of
violence in pursuing his political agenda.
"It is a shocking story in large part because he is a
very bright, articulate guy who, in my observation,
never really conveyed a sense of being off balance,"
Feighan said.
Plain Dealer reporters Michelle Fuetsch, John F.
Hagan, Alan Achkar, Stephen Koff, Elizabeth Marchak,
Sabrina Eaton and Patrick O'Donnell and librarian
Cheryl Diamond contributed to this article.
E-mail: mgill...@plaind.com Phone: (216) 999-4227
E-mail: tdi...@plaind.com Phone: (216) 999-4212