Tuesday, April 21, 2009

Marin animal rights activist makes FBI's 'most wanted terrorist' list


The FBI has added Marin County animal rights extremist Daniel Andreas San Diego to its "Most Wanted Terrorists" list for bombing two Bay Area biotech firms.
San Diego, now 31, has eluded authorities for nearly six years. The hope is that national publicity about his case, as well as a reminder of the $250,000 reward, will lead to a surge of new tips about his possible whereabouts. But it's also a sign that the FBI takes "domestic terrorism" as seriously as threats from abroad.

"Mr. San Diego and those like him are every bit as great a threat to the peace and security of the United States as any foreign terrorist," said Special Agent in Charge Charlene Thornton of the FBI's San Francisco office.

The Most Wanted Terrorist list includes Osama bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri, as well as several other Muslim terrorists. San Diego is only the second American citizen and the only domestic terrorist to appear on the FBI's list.

Federal agents say they have evidence that ties San Diego to the two bombs that exploded at the offices of Chiron in Emeryville on Aug. 28, 2003, as well as one bomb that blew up outside of Shaklee in Pleasanton on Sept. 26, 2003.

Federal agents had San Diego, a 1996 graduate of Terra Linda High in San Rafael, under 24-hour surveillance. But he realized that he was being followed and managed to lose the agents who were tailing him. The FBI now assumes that he has slipped into an underground network of fellow activists, and thought at one point that

he was in Costa Rica.
Since 2004, San Diego has been shown several times on the Fox TV network show, "America's Most Wanted."

San Diego is described as having brown hair and brown eyes, is 6 feet tall, weighs about 160 pounds, and has several distinctive tattoos depicting burning buildings and a valley on fire.

His parents, Edmund and Heike San Diego, did not respond to requests for comment. Edmund San Diego is the former city manager of Belvedere.

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