Four British animal rights activists were found guilty today (Dec. 23) of blackmailing companies that supplied linkurl:Huntingdon Life Sciences;http://www.huntingdon.com/ (HLS), a contract animal-testing company based near Cambridge, England. The activists, part of a group called linkurl:Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty (SHAC),;http://www.shac.net/ led a campaign from 2001 to 2007 to intimidate several companies with ties to HLS in an effort to shut down the laboratory. Their tactics involved prank phone calls and letters, hoax bombs, property damage, violent threats, and even sending sanitary towels allegedly contaminated with AIDS in the mail.
"These convictions mean that researchers can now go back to their business of sound science by developing treatments and cures for diseases through vital medical research," Simon Festing, executive director of the linkurl:Research Defence Society,;http://www.rds-online.org.uk/ a British pro-animal testing lobby group, said in a statement. The four activists, aged 20 to 45, now face up to 14 years in prison for...
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