Federal prosecutors compare ELF activists to KKK

By JEFF BARNARD
The Associated Press
Tuesday, May 15, 2007; 10:00 PM

EUGENE, Ore. -- Attorneys prosecuting activists accused of setting
fires to stop logging and the slaughter of wild horses compared their
clients Tuesday to Klansmen who burned churches in the South, drawing
the ire of defense lawyers.

"I cannot sit idly by and hear what these defendants did compared to
acts of the Ku Klux Klan burning empty churches," because the Klan's
action also resulted in the deaths of young girls and included
lynchings and murders, defense attorney Amanda Lee said.

The exchange came in a hearing at which federal prosecutors asked U.S.
District Judge Ann Aiken to declare the string of 20 arsons in five
Western states by a cell of the Earth Liberation Front and Animal
Liberation Front to be terrorist acts, qualifying the defendants for
longer sentences under federal guidelines.

The six men and four women have pleaded guilty to conspiracy and arson
in connection with fires, set from 1996 through 2001, that did $40
million in damage to a Vail, Colo., ski resort; national forest ranger
stations; meat packing plants; research laboratories; lumber company
offices; a tree farm; and an auto dealership.

Aiken said that because each of the defendant's crimes and
circumstances are different, she was unlikely to rule before next
Tuesday, when the first of the defendants is to be sentenced.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Peifer argued that the fires qualified
as terrorism because they were intended to coerce the government to
change its policies on logging, selling wild horses for slaughter and
genetic engineering.

"This is a classic case of terrorism, despite their protests of lofty
humane goals," Peifer said. "It was pure luck no one was killed or
injured by their actions."

Defense attorneys replied that the fires do not qualify as terrorism
because the defendants took great care to be sure no one was killed or
injured.

"If that is the standard, then the Ku Klux Klan did not commit
terrorism" when they burned empty black churches in the South in the
1960s, Peifer said.

Defense lawyers noted that never before has any of the 1,200 fires
attributed to the two radical groups nationwide qualified a defendant
for extra time in prison because it was considered a terrorist act.