Possible Link of GI Killing to Bombing Being Probed

BONN —  West German police disclosed Tuesday that they are investigating the possibility that terrorists who detonated a car bomb last week at the U.S. Rhein-Main Air Base, near Frankfurt, may have first killed an American soldier and used his identity card to enter the base.

The identity card of Spec. 4 Edward F. Pimental, 20, of New York, was sent to a news agency in Frankfurt on Tuesday. With it was a copy of a letter previously sent to news agencies that claimed responsibility for the air base blast last Thursday that killed an American serviceman and the wife of another. Twenty people were injured in the blast.

The letter was signed by the Marxist-oriented West German terrorist Red Army Faction and a French extremist group called Direct Action.

Pimental’s body was found on the day of the bombing, in a wooded area outside Wiesbaden, where he was stationed with an ordnance unit. Wiesbaden is about 25 miles west of Frankfurt. At the time, the police theorized that he had been killed by the jealous boyfriend of a girl he was seeing.

But a police spokesman said Tuesday that delivery of the identity card seemed to indicate that Pimental was killed for his identification, which would have enabled the Red Army Faction to have access to the air base.

Stolen License Plates

The bomb was placed inside a Volkswagen bearing special U. S. military license plates that had been stolen from another vehicle. The Volkswagen was then left in a parking lot outside the headquarters of the 435th Tactical Airlift Wing at Rhein-Main and exploded a short time later.

Spokesmen for the U.S. military refused to comment on the possibility of a link between Pimental’s death and the explosion. A German police spokesman confirmed, however, that Pimental’s identification papers were not found on the body.

Pimental was last seen leaving a Wiesbaden discotheque late Wednesday night with an unidentified woman and man. His body was found the next morning in a wooded area, shot in the neck.

According to West German authorities, this would be the first incident in which the Red Army Faction killed a person in order to get documents to be used in a subsequent terrorist operation.

“This would indicate the start of a much more brutal phase in the way the Red Army Faction operates,” a police source in Frankfurt said.

German authorities said they have advised security officials throughout the country that the bombing at the air base could herald terrorist attacks on other military installations.

The authorities have circulated the pictures of 12 presumed members of the Red Army Faction to police officials throughout West Germany and, through the international police cooperative network known as Interpol, to other countries.

They have also passed along drawings, worked out on the basis of witnesses’ descriptions, of the man and woman who were seen leaving the Wiesbaden discotheque with Pimental.