Vegan placed on FBI Most Wanted list of terror suspects
The Australian online, April 22, 2009
An American vegan has become the first domestic terrorist to be listed on the FBI’s Most Wanted list of terror suspects.
The name of Daniel Andreas San Diego, who is accused of carrying out the 2003 bombings of two US companies affiliated with Huntingdon Life Sciences of Cambridgeshire in Britain, is listed alongside the likes of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Adam Yahiye Gadahn.
A reward of $US250,000 is being offered for information leading to his “location and arrest”.
San Diego, who is shown on the FBI’s Most Wanted poster with short brown hair and glasses, is said to have several unusual tattoos that depict burning buildings and dead trees.
“San Diego’s criminal acts of violence were domestic acts of terror planned out and possibly intended to take lives, destroy property, and create economic hardship for the companies involved,” said Mike Heinback, the Assistant Director of the FBI.
Huntingdon Life Sciences, founded in 1952, became linked with animal cruelty in the late 1990s when an undercover video showed employees holding a beagle puppy by the scruff of the neck and repeatedly punching it in the face.
Two of the employees were prosecuted under the Animals Act of 1911 and were punished with court costs and community service. On its website, Huntingdon devotes a number of pages to its ethical position.
“Scientists have strong ethical, economic and legal obligations to use animals in research only when absolutely necessary,” it says. “A lot of effort goes into trying to reduce the numbers of animals used, and trying to develop new methods to replace animals. As a result, the number of laboratory animals used annually in the UK has halved in the last 30 years.”
The FBI described San Diego as “a well-known San Francisco Bay area animal rights extremist involved with the Stop Huntington Animal Cruelty campaign, commonly referred to as SHAC”.
SHAC was formed in England in 1999. The campaign spread to the US about nine years ago when activists began confronting US-based Huntington employees and clients.
In 2003, San Diego allegedly rigged explosives to the entry door of the Chiron Life Science Centre Building in Emeryville, California. When the authorities showed up a second set of explosives went off before they could be defused. A month later San Diego allegedly set off a nail bomb outside the front lobby of a company in California. There were no fatalities.
Both companies were understood to be carrying out work for Huntington. Claims of responsibility were posted on the internet demanding that the businesses end their relationships with the British animal-testing company.
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