1990s: British Animal Rights Activists Injure People with Letter Bombs

In Britain, offshoots of the Animal Liberation Front (ALF—see 1976), including the “Justice Department” and the “Animal Rights Militia,” injure several people using letter bombs and envelopes rigged with poisoned razor blades. [Anti-Defamation League, 2005] Among the injured are a furrier and his three-year-old daughter. Some of the razor blades are dipped in rat poison; one letter reads in part: “Dear animal killing scum! Hope we sliced your finger wide open and that you now die from the rat poison we smeared on the razor blade.” The letter is signed, “Justice Department strikes again.” British authorities believe that one person, ALF activist Keith Mann, is the leader of the Justice Department, though they cannot be sure. Mann will be sentenced to 11 years in prison for terrorist-related activities. A Justice Department statement explains that the group is willing to go farther than ALF, stating: “The Animal Liberation Front achieved what other methods have not while adhering to nonviolence.… A separate idea was established that decided animal abusers had been warned long enough.… [T]he time has come for abusers to have but a taste of the fear and anguish their victims suffer on a daily basis.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/2002]