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LOS ANGELES — Cameras should be barred from the courtroom during the bomb conspiracy trial of former SLA fugitive Sara Jane Olson because the testimony could teach viewers how to make bombs, prosecutors argued Friday. 

Defense lawyer Shawn Chapman countered that such information was readily available on the Internet and in fact was given in great detail Thursday night during an ABC-TV Prime Time special about Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. 

Superior Court Judge Larry P. Fidler said if he decides to allow cameras in the courtroom, he might bar them during testimony describing how bombs are manufactured. 

However, the judge did not immediately rule on the motion brought by Court TV and joined by other broadcast media. 

Attorney Kelli Sager argued that there is wide public interest in the trial of the Minnesota housewife who was arrested 25 years after the Symbionese Liberation Army made headlines.  

She is charged with planting bombs under police cars in Los Angeles as retaliation for the deaths of six SLA members in a fiery police shootout.  

The bombs never went off. 

Olson remained a fugitive for more than two decades and led an apparently crime-free life as a doctor’s wife and mother of three children until she was arrested in June 1999 near her home in St. Paul, Minn.  

She has pleaded innocent and is free on $1 million bail. 

The debate over cameras in the courtroom was heard before, but when a new judge was appointed to the case, it had to be re-examined.  

Fidler told the prosecution: “There is going to be coverage of this case and the print media is free to report on what happens in this trial. You have to tell me how the television coverage differs.” 

Deputy District Attorney Eleanor Hunter said the district attorney’s office, which normally favors camera coverage, is opposing it in this case because of the bomb evidence and because there may be another trial eventually involving a 1975 murder committed during a Sacramento area bank robbery. 

Investigation of that long-dormant case has been reopened at the request of Hunter and her co-counsel Michael Latin, even though Sacramento authorities have said often that there is insufficient evidence. 

In her remarks Friday, Hunter suggested that former SLA member Emily Harris shot Myrna Opsahl at the bank, a contention made by Patty Hearst in her book about the case.  

Hunter worried aloud that if that allegation was raised in Olson’s trial and was broadcast on TV, Harris would argue she couldn’t get a fair trial in Sacramento. 

“There is a real possibility that the Carmichael case will be filed,” Hunter said. 

Sager told the judge such considerations were irrelevant because neither Harris nor Olson has been charged in the Sacramento case and the information would be disseminated by the print media in any case. 

Hunter told the judge she and Latin were going to Sacramento next week. 

“Can I assume you won’t be talking about legislation?” the judge said sarcastically. 

Chapman said she would file a motion Monday to continue the April 30 trial date for Olson because of a continuing avalanche of discovery documents being produced by prosecutors. She said she has received some 22,000 pages of evidence.