Most wanted Ex-activist says FBI offered deal to catch fugitive found in UK

A former animal rights activist who was on the run from the FBI for more than seven years claims that he was offered a deal to inform on one of the organisation's most wanted fugitives, who was arrested this week in Wales.

- Hannah Al-Othman

Peter Young, 47, who now lives in Boulder, Colorado, went on the run after being indicted in 1998 over a string of fur farm raids across three states the previous year. He was jailed in the US for two years in 2005 after spending years hiding from the FBI in the UK.

He said the agency had since sought information from him about Daniel Andreas San Diego, 46, who has been on the FBI's "most wanted terrorists" list for almost two decades over his alleged involvement in bombings in San Francisco in 2003.

San Diego was arrested in Maenan, near Conwy, on Monday, with officers from the UK's National Crime Agency and North Wales police acting on a FBI request.

The FBI said he was an "animal rights extremist", who is alleged to have been involved in two explosions on the campus of a San Francisco biotechnology firm in August 2003, and a bombing at a nutritional products company in the same city a month later.

The FBI said it considered him "armed and dangerous" and had offered a reward of up to $250,000 (£200,000) for information leading directly to his arrest.

"I've never met Daniel Andreas San Diego. I've never met anyone who's met him," said Young.