Police, FBI Probe Fatal Blast in Quincy Home, Boston Globe, 31 March 1999

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Police are hoping the results of an autopsy performed on Chawki Ibrahim, the 59-year-old man killed in an explosion at his home Monday night, will provide clues as to what caused the basement explosion on Standish Avenue.

Quincy police, State Police, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms are investigating the explosion.

Relatives, some of whom lived across the street from the Lebanon-born Ibrahim, declined comment yesterday.

Pastor Joseph Lahoud, of Our Lady of Cedars Lebanon Catholic Church, said family members told him Ibrahim, a carpenter in an antique restoration shop, was holding an unidentified object when it exploded.

A spokesman for the Norfolk district attorney's office, David Traub, declined to comment on Lahoud's statement or on suspicions of a letter bomb. Traub said foul play has not been ruled out.

"We do not have a determination on the origin of the explosion," Traub said, adding that evidence has been sent to the State Police lab in Sudbury. "Nothing has been ruled out."

At 6:38 p.m. Monday, police received a 911 call from 93 Standish Ave., where they found Ibrahim in the basement. Ibrahim died on the way to Quincy Hospital.

Other family members were uninjured in the explosion, police said.

"He was absolutely a good family man. He was a hard worker and taught his children how to do honest work and to be good people. The family ties were beautiful," said Lahoud, adding that Ibrahim and his wife, Zahra, have eight adult children.

This is not the first time tragedy has struck the Ibrahim family. A few years ago, according to Lahoud, Ibrahim's father-in-law was hit by a car and killed. "The family says something is happening on this street," said Lahoud, "that there is bad luck there."