US man wanted for ecoterror sentenced in China

An American man wanted for ecoterrorism attacks in the western United States has been sentenced to three years in a Chinese prison on drug charges.

Justin Franchi Solondz, 30, was given the sentence on Friday, said an official at the intermediate court in Dali city, in southwestern China's Yunnan province, who gave his family name as Zhao.

Solondz was indicted in California and Washington state in 2006 in connection with a series of arsons attributed to "the Family," a collection of radical environmentalists aligned with the Animal and Earth Liberation Fronts, from 1996-2001.

Attacks by the group caused more than USD 80 million in damage, according to the FBI, which called Solondz a domestic terrorist. Prosecutors say Solondz used timers, Tupperware containers and fuel-filled bladders to build incendiary devices used in one of the most notorious blazes, the May 2001 destruction of the University of Washington's Center for Urban Horticulture.

Investigators heard little of Solondz after his indictment, and the FBI issued a $ 50,000 reward late last year for information leading to his arrest. At the time, the agency said he might be in Canada, Europe or Asia.
Early this year he surfaced in Dali, a city popular with Western tourists, using a phony Canadian identification and an altered appearance, Mark Bartlett, the first assistant US attorney in Seattle, said yesterday.