POLICE have stepped up their investigation into three firebomb attacks
in the Lothians in the last fortnight amid growing concern that they are
the work of a group of Animal Liberation Front activists in Scotland.
The latest incendiary attack came early yesterday morning on a tannery
in Currie, just outside Edinburgh. At one stage more than 50 firemen
fought the blaze in the two-storey leather factory in Lanark Road West,
battling for two hours to bring it under control and prevent it
spreading to an adjoining five-floor building.
An Animal Liberation Front spokesman said he was confident the group's
activists were behind the current campaign in Scotland, but that for
security reasons the cells had not contacted him. He denied human life
was threatened but said attacks on property would probably continue.
The recent incidents include:
* On November 27 there were arson attacks on three laboratories at the
Bush Estate, near Penicuik, with Edinburgh University's centre for
tropical medicine worst hit -- #20,000 in damage and years of research
lost. The Bush Estate had been attacked two years ago in an attack
claimed by the Animal Liberation Front. No claim was made this time.
* On December 2 drivers arriving for work at a Linlithgow abattoir
found their lorries attached to incendiary devices with timers. There
was little damage. A butcher's shop in Edinburgh's Craigmillar was also
burned out early that same day.
* On December 4 there was a firebomb attack on the Institute of
Terrestrial Ecology near Banchory in Aberdeenshire, again resulting in
the loss of years of research data.
* On December 6 an attack was carried out on the kennels of the
Houston Hunt in Renfrewshire.
* On Saturday night, December 7, another meat factory was firebombed,
this time at Tamfourhill industrial estate at Camelon, near Falkirk.
* Early yesterday, attackers hit the J. Hewit & Sons leather factory
at Currie.
Although police are refusing to be drawn on whether the attacks are
linked, the Penicuik, Linlithgow, and Currie bombings are being dealt
with from a single incident room at Dalkeith police station, where
Detective Superintendent Norman Henderson is in charge of a team of
about two dozen officers.
A spokesman for Lothian and Borders Police said: ''They are clearly
incidents of a similar nature, and are therefore being dealt with
centrally.''
A spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers of Scotland
confirmed yesterday that all the forces involved are working together in
an effort to establish whether the attacks are part of a campaign. A
Strathclyde Police spokesman said officers from different forces were
pooling information and would meet later this week to compare notes.
In Cambridge, Animal Liberation Front spokesman Robin Webb said he
believed there may well be more than one ALF cell operating in Scotland.
He insisted that ALF firebombers took great care to ensure that only
property was damaged and neither humans nor animals were at risk.
However, other animal rights activists condemned the current
firebombing campaign.
Advocates for Animals director Les Ward said: ''If these goons reckon
that by firebombing buildings they are going to change Government
policy, they are off their heads. They will kill someone eventually, I
believe.''
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