Fourteen firebombs set off under SUVs in Cherry Creek in March or recovered from the car of the suspect are “identical” to devices used by an extremist group known as the European Animal Liberation Front, according to Denver investigators.
Leif Skulborstad, a Denver Fire Department investigator, said in a search warrant affidavit that identical devices were used by ALF activists in the Netherlands to torch meat trucks.
Instructions on how to make such devices are given on an ALF-affiliated website, Skulborstad said.
“The materials required for assembly and the instructions for assembly (of the Dutch devices) are identical to the materials used and the way the devices were assembled in the (Denver fires) under investigation,” Skulborstad, wrote in the affidavit.
The suspected Denver arsonist, Grant Barnes, 24, was arrested March 22 after Denver police launched a “saturation patrol” in the neighborhood where several incendiary devices were left.
They believe Barnes attempted to set off the devices under seven SUVs over a four-day span in March. Seven more devices were found in Barnes’ car.
Denver investigators have received permission to search a computer found in Barnes’ car. They believe it could show what websites Barnes visited and and whether he acted in “collaboration with members of an arson/terrorist organization.”
Authorities cited no evidence that Barnes coordinated his activities with any outside group or had any accomplices in the firebombing.
KCNC-TV, Channel 4, reported over the weekend that investigators wanted to search Barnes’ computer for any links to ecoterror groups.
Phil Cherner, the lawyer representing Barnes, had no comment Monday on the latest allegations and said he had not seen the latest search warrant affidavit.
Skulborstad said 13 fire department investigators and a Denver-based ATF agent had never before seen such devices as those used in the March incidents. But he said extensive Internet searches located images of similar devices and how to construct them on an ALF website.
The document found online, Skulborstad said, was titled “Arson-Around with Auntie ALF.” The website included instructions for the assembly of an incendiary device that “is popular amongst European ALF activists and was put to good use in Holland against a number of vehicles belonging to meat companies.”
Capt. Tony Berumen, head of the Denver Fire Department’s Fire Prevention and Investigation Division, said Monday that the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms is “actively involved” in the ongoing investigation of the Denver arson attacks.
Someone wrote the letters ELF (often used to mean Earth Liberation Front) on a Hummer H2 hours after one of the devices went off and the Hummer was heavily damaged. At the time, Barnes had not been arrested.
Skulborstad said that ELF and ALF are interrelated organizations and “both & use arson and incendiary devices as a terrorist tactic.”
He noted that John E. Lewis, the FBI’s assistant director for counter-terrorism told Congress that “by far the most destructive practice of ALF/ELF is arson.
Skulborstad said that among the items recovered from Barnes’ car were seven of the incendiary devices, a 2-gallon gas can, a box of long matches, a box of stormproof matches, one package of toilet paper and 13 packages of incense.
Staff writer Howard Pankratz can be reached at 303-954-1939 or hpankratz@denverpost.com.
