A US man wanted for ecoterrorism attacks in the US has been sentenced to three years in a Chinese prison for making illegal drugs.
Justin Franchi Solondz, 30, was given the sentence on Friday, said an official at the intermediate court in Dali, Yunnan Province.
It was unclear what drugs Solondz was accused of producing. His father, Paul Solondz, said that his son pleaded guilty last month.
Paul Solondz said his son was arrested in China during a drug sweep in March, and authorities later found 15kg of marijuana leaves buried in the courtyard of a home he rented. He said evidence at the trial in China suggested that his son used chemicals to press the marijuana leaves into a liquid, but the result was an unusable, toxic mixture.
He said Solondz did not want to dispose of the liquid for fear of damaging the environment, but that after his arrest, a friend tried to do him a favor by burying the leaves in the courtyard.
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, between 1996 and 2001. Attacks by the group caused more than US$80 million in damage, said the FBI, which called Solondz a domestic terrorist.
Investigators heard little of Solondz after his indictment, and the FBI issued a US$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, using a phony Canadian identification and an altered appearance, Mark Bartlett, the first assistant US attorney in Seattle, said on Saturday.
He was arrested in a drug investigation in March, and a few weeks later US federal prosecutors in Seattle were contacted to help confirm his true identity, Bartlett said.
The US has no extradition treaty with China and it’s not immediately clear when or how Solondz might be returned to the US to face charges, Bartlett said, but the US Justice Department has informed Chinese officials that it remains interested in prosecuting him.
Paul Solondz said his son did not flee the US to avoid prosecution. He said his son went to Italy for a wedding in 2005 and traveled from there, entering China with a valid visa and renewing it twice.
Conjoined twins Lori and George Schappell, who pursued separate careers, interests and relationships during lives that defied medical expectations, died this month in Pennsylvania, funeral home officials said. They were 62. The twins, listed by Guinness World Records as the oldest living conjoined twins, died on April 7 at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, obituaries posted by Leibensperger Funeral Homes of Hamburg said. The cause of death was not detailed. “When we were born, the doctors didn’t think we’d make 30, but we proved them wrong,” Lori said in an interview when they turned 50, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The
IN PURSUIT: Israel’s defense minister said the revenge attacks by Israeli settlers would make it difficult for security forces to find those responsible for the 14-year-old’s death Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Saturday condemned the “heinous murder” of an Israeli teenager in the occupied West Bank as attacks on Palestinian villages intensified following news of his death. After Benjamin Achimeir, 14, was reported missing near Ramallah on Friday, hundreds of Jewish settlers backed by Israeli forces raided nearby Palestinian villages, torching vehicles and homes, leaving at least one villager dead and dozens wounded. The attacks escalated in several villages on Saturday after Achimeir’s body was found near the Malachi Hashalom outpost. Agence France-Presse correspondents saw smoke rising from burned houses and fields. Mayor Amin Abu Alyah, of the
Australian police yesterday said a 40-year-old itinerant with mental illness was behind a Sydney shopping center stabbing rampage that killed six people, including a new mum whose nine-month-old baby is still in hospital with serious wounds. New South Wales Police Assistant Commissioner Anthony Cooke said the assailant — who was shot and killed by a senior police officer at the scene on Saturday — was Queensland man Joel Cauchi. Five women and one male security guard were killed in the attack as Cauchi roved through a packed shopping center in the city’s Bondi Junction neighborhood with a large knife. Twelve more people
A prominent Christian leader has allegedly been stabbed at the altar during a Mass yesterday in southwest Sydney. Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel was saying Mass at Christ The Good Shepherd Church in Wakeley just after 7pm when a man approached him at the altar and allegedly stabbed toward his head multiple times. A live stream of the Mass shows the congregation swarm forward toward Emmanuel before it was cut off. The church leader gained prominence during the COVID-19 pandemic, amassing a large online following, Officers attached to Fairfield City police area command attended a location on Welcome Street, Wakeley following reports a number