Daniel Andreas San Diego, a fugitive long listed by the FBI as a suspected domestic terrorist, appeared in Westminster Magistrates' Court on Monday as he fights a U.S. bid to extradite him to face charges over a series of 2003 bombings in the San Francisco Bay Area.
San Diego, who was detained at a rural cottage in Conwy, North Wales, on Nov. 25, stood in a glass-fronted dock flanked by prison guards and confirmed his personal details. He spoke with a U.S. accent, held court papers and briefly waved to someone in the public gallery. Authorities say he had been on the run for more than two decades and carried a reported reward of £200,000.
U.S. prosecutors accuse San Diego of detonating two bombs at a biotechnology firm near Oakland on Aug. 28, 2003, and of later planting a nail-packed device that exploded outside a nutritional-products company on Sept. 26, 2003. The FBI has said a second device at the first scene appeared to be positioned to harm first responders. No one was reported injured in the incidents.
San Diego was indicted in 2004 in the United States on counts that include "maliciously damaging and destroying by means of an explosive," according to court filings. U.S. counsel told the London court that the two targeted businesses had links to Huntingdon Life Sciences, a British company that has been the focus of longstanding protests over animal testing. The Animal Liberation Brigade claimed responsibility for the 2003 attacks at the time, and the FBI has said San Diego had ties to animal-rights activism.
At Monday's hearing, the U.S. prosecution said investigators found a copy of a magazine to which the Animal Liberation Brigade had sent statements inside the Welsh property where San Diego was arrested and that ingredients for improvised explosive devices were located in his car. British authorities arrested San Diego after an operation conducted by the National Crime Agency, Counter Terrorism Policing and North Wales Police.
Defense counsel Mark Summers argued that San Diego should not be extradited, citing what he described as the "political capture of the criminal justice system" and raising concerns about the U.S. Department of Justice under former President Donald Trump. A U.S. lawyer, Joel Smith, countered by outlining the alleged links between the targeted firms and Huntingdon Life Sciences and by pointing to the discovery of bomb-making materials.
San Diego was placed on the FBI's most-wanted terrorist list in 2009, the agency has said, one of the first domestic suspects to appear among names long dominated by international extremists. U.S. authorities previously said that, after the 2003 bombings, San Diego led police on a 65-mile chase in California and that a so-called "bomb-making factory" was recovered from an abandoned vehicle.
He was found at Llidiart y Coed, a remote cottage near the village of Maenan in the Conwy Valley, more than 5,000 miles from the scenes of the alleged attacks. Prosecutors say evidence recovered there and elsewhere ties him to the 2003 incidents.
The extradition hearing is scheduled to continue and is expected to conclude next Thursday; however, the judge indicated a final ruling would not be made immediately and may come later this year. If extradited, San Diego would face trial in the United States on the long-standing charges arising from the 2003 blastings.
The case underscores continuing cross-border cooperation between British and American law enforcement in terrorism and serious-crime matters and revives scrutiny of a series of attacks that prompted high-profile claims by animal-rights militants more than two decades ago. Court proceedings in London will determine whether the evidence presented satisfies the legal tests for extradition under the U.K.-U.S. treaty framework.