Free Republic

A suspect was arrested on suspicion of arson after a fire last week at a mosque in St. Paul, Minn., at least the fifth such act of vandalism in the state so far this year that has left members of the Muslim community “living in fear,” a state senator said. Jaylani Hussein, the executive director of the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said at a news conference that the mosque, the Oromo American Tawhid Islamic Center, was left “completely burned” after being set on fire on Wednesday. The building was unoccupied at the time and no injuries...

An animal rights activist who burned down a Colorado sheepskin store as well as a leather store and restaurant building in Salt Lake City, pleaded guilty to federal charges Wednesday. Walter Edmund Bond, 35, pleaded guilty to felony counts of arson and violence involving animal enterprises. He has already been sentenced to five years in Colorado and could face between five to 20 years for the Utah fires when sentenced Sept. 19. Prosecutor John Huber said the government will argue to make the Colorado and Utah sentences consecutive to one another. "He is unapologetic. He is an unrepentant serial arsonist,"...

Walter Edmund Bond was taken into custody Thursday in Denver after allegedly telling an informant that he started the Glendale fire and two fires in Utah because they were businesses that "profited from animals." At the time of his arrest by FBI and ATF agents, Bond was carrying a backpack, according to an affidavit by Rennie Mora, a special agent for the ATF. Agents searched the backpack and found literature titled, "The Declaration of War - Killing People to Save the Animals and the Environment - Strike a Match Light a Fuse We've Only Have the Earth to Lose." Bond...