A SUSPECTED terrorist who managed to evade the FBI for more than two decades before being apprehended in Wales can be extradited to the United States to face trial, a court has heard.
Daniel Andreas San Diego, 47, was listed among the FBI’s “most wanted fugitives” following a series of bombings in San Francisco, California, in 2003.
He was arrested in November 2024 in a remote area near Maenan, Conwy, after spending 21 years on the run.
At Westminster Magistrates’ Court, Judge Vanessa Goozée dismissed arguments raised by San Diego’s legal team. He must now seek the Home Secretary’s permission before he can appeal the extradition order.
Born in Berkeley, California, San Diego is accused of planting three nail bombs across California in 2003. The case against him was prepared by Assistant US Attorney Helen Gilbert, who outlined the allegations in court.
She said: “The case concerns the detonation of three improvised explosive devices at two different companies in California. Chiron Corporation and Shaklee Corporation were targeted because of their links to Huntingdon Life Sciences, a research organisation that conducted animal testing.”
Two homemade bombs were detonated at Chiron’s headquarters in Emeryville, California, in the early hours of 28 August 2003. While employees were present at the site, no one was injured, though property damage occurred.
The following day, an animal rights group calling itself the Animal Liberation Brigade, Revolutionary Cells, claimed responsibility in an online post on a bulletin board for an animal rights magazine. The message stated that volunteers had left “a small surprise of two pipe bombs filled with ammonium nitrate slurry with redundant timers” at Chiron.
A second bomb exploded at Shaklee’s headquarters in Pleasanton, California, at approximately 3:20am on 26 September 2003. Again, no injuries were reported, though the device contained nails that “would have caused serious injuries if any person had been nearby,” Gilbert told the court. Responsibility for this attack was also claimed by the same animal rights group.
San Diego became a prime suspect after being stopped by traffic police near the site of one of the explosions on the night of the Shaklee bombing. He was released and subsequently vanished. The US authorities later recovered his fingerprints on bomb-making equipment in a car he abandoned.
San Diego was eventually arrested by the National Crime Agency in November 2024 and taken to the high-security HMP Belmarsh in London. Officers noted that the patio doors of his home were left open, with a wrapped Christmas present on a table.
The couple who sold him the £400,000 property said the man they knew as a Canadian had kept to himself and was often seen walking his dogs in the surrounding countryside. At the time of his arrest, he was in possession of an Irish passport in the name Danny Webb and had worked as an IT consultant. Little is known about his movements during the two decades he was on the run.
Shortly after his capture, it emerged that San Diego had featured five times on the US television programme America’s Most Wanted. The FBI had also placed him on their Most Wanted Terrorists list alongside figures such as Osama bin Laden and Abdul Rahman Yasin, wanted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.
San Diego disappeared into a San Francisco subway station while under continuous FBI surveillance as authorities prepared to arrest him in connection with the California bombings.
During the extradition hearing, his legal team argued that he could not expect a fair trial in the United States, citing potential political and legal interference.
