’90s pipeline bomber Ludwig linked to extortion letters

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This article was published 09/02/2010 (5898 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EDMONTON — RCMP officials say they have DNA evidence that links convicted pipeline bomber Wiebo Ludwig to two letters related to a series of bomb attacks on oil and gas sites near Dawson Creek, B.C., according to search warrants released Tuesday.

The documents, which were sworn in a Vancouver court, also show that police thought Ludwig was involved in the bombings themselves, but as of Jan. 5 did not have any direct evidence tying him to the attacks.
 
No one has been charged in the six bombings, which targeted EnCana natural gas sites outside the northeastern B.C. community between October 2008 and July 2009.

Police used the warrants to search Ludwig’s northern Alberta farm for four days last month, beginning Jan. 8.

Ludwig was arrested on the first day of the search and held for 24 hours. At the time, he told his lawyer he believed police intended to charge him with extortion, but he was released the next day without charge.

The documents show the dozens of police officers who searched Ludwig’s farm were looking for bomb-making materials and boots that may have been linked to the attacks, as well as computers, printers, audio/visual equipment and stationery that could have been used to write the letters that demanded EnCana leave the area or risk further sabotage.

The documents run more than 100 pages and include detailed descriptions of the RCMP investigation into the attacks. Among other new information, they reveal the bombings cost EnCana almost $8 million in repairs and lost production. They also show that police spent more than two months investigating EnCana employees in 2009 after the company suggested the bomber might have inside information. One section of the documents notes that EnCana’s highly publicized $1-million reward yielded no new significant tips.

Most of the documents, though, are dedicated to the RCMP’s suspicions about Ludwig and his extended family, 50 of whom live on his sprawling property outside Hythe, Alta.

The police believe that at least one, and probably most, of the bombs were built with explosives stolen from work sites along the B.C.-Alberta border.
 
The warrants suggest police may be able to link Ludwig and his family to the unsolved thefts.

Much is also made in the documents of Ludwig’s hostile history with the oil and gas industry. In the early 1990s, he served two-thirds of a 28-month prison sentence on charges related to oilpatch bombings and vandalism. More recently he has had confrontations with oil and gas workers near his farm and he told a provincial investigator that he knows and has a good rapport with the pipeline bomber, the warrants claim.

But the key evidence in the documents is the DNA, which was taken from two envelopes sent to B.C. newspapers after the most recent bombing.

The letters, sent July 14, 2009, told EnCana it could not win the fight, demanded the company pull out of the area and offered a three-month reprieve from the attacks.

According to the warrants, police found the DNA of an unidentified man on both envelopes. The man’s DNA was later matched to DNA found on two pieces of evidence from old RCMP investigations of Ludwig, a napkin and a bloody T-shirt.

“Based on the forensic DNA evidence obtained to date I believe the unidentified male DNA… belongs to Wiebo Ludwig,” RCMP Cpl. Keith Hack wrote in the search warrant.

After he was arrested in January, Ludwig was required to provide a new DNA sample to police. Whether that sample matched the DNA found on the envelopes has not yet been revealed.

Nothing in the warrants has been proved in court.

Dawson Creek is roughly 590 kilometres northwest of Edmonton.

— Canwest News Service