May 2007

Intensive collaboration between law enforcement agencies on both sides of the Atlantic led to last week's large-scale police action against alleged animal rights extremists in the UK. The US Federal Bureau of Investigation was closely involved, as well as European police forces.

Phil Celestini, FBI supervisory special agent, told the Bio conference in Boston that increasingly close transatlantic co-ordination "resulted in the arrests we saw last week. And you can bank on there being more [arrests] to come".

The remarks by Mr Celestini, who has led the FBI's activities against animal rights extremism for several years, amplified a statement put out by Joseph Billy, head of the FBI counter-terrorism division. Mr Billy said the arrest in Britain of 32 alleged extremists associated with Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty, an animal rights group, "sends a message that criminal activity is not protected on either side of the ocean". The FBI "has forged strong partnerships with our international law enforcement counterparts. We will share and exchange information with them to target these criminals".
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Frankie Trull, president of the National Association for Biomedical Research, said the focus of activists' attention had begun to switch over the past two years from large pharmaceutical companies to smaller biotechs.

GlaxoSmithKline is the pharmaceutical company that has received most attention from extremists - and campaigned most vociferously against them. Bill Trundley, GSK's UK-based head of corporate security, said his company had experienced 3,000 incidents related to animal rights extremism since 2001, ranging from intimidating leaflets to vandalism and bomb attacks.

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full story:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/c20e4732-fdcb-11db-8d62-000b5df10621.html