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SLA bombing trial delayed until next year

Sara Jane Olson and husband Fred Peterson answer questions at a presser following her bond hearing last July

Accused was a fugitive for 25 years

From CNN Producer Jim Vojtech in Los Angeles

May 12, 2000
Web posted at: 12:52 p.m. EST (1652 GMT)

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- A judge delayed on Thursday the trial in the bombing conspiracy case of former Symbionese Liberation Army member Sara Jane Olson until early next year.

Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Anne Soliah, is charged with conspiring to murder by planting bombs under two Los Angeles police cars in 1975, allegedly to avenge the deaths of SLA members killed in a fiery police shootout. The bombs did not go off.

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Superior Court Judge James Ideman pushed the trial date forward from August 14 to January 8, 2001, to allow Olson's new lawyers time to prepare her case.

Olson's defense team has changed with the recent addition of famed San Francisco attorney Tony Serra. Shawn Chapman, who was part of the O.J. Simpson defense team, joined earlier in the year.

Olson's lawyers told the judge in a written motion that more time is needed to consider the overwhelming amount of evidence in the case. They said they would not be able to study some 15,000 pages of evidence, prepare for 150 prosecution witnesses and be ready to go to trial in August.

Olson, who appeared at Thursday's hearing, was a fugitive for nearly 25 years. She was arrested last year in St. Paul, Minnesota.

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