Suspect Charged in Attempted MLK Day Bombing

By WILLIAM YARDLEY

SEATTLE — A man suspected of planting a sophisticated bomb along the route of a march honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Spokane, Wash., was arrested early Wednesday, law enforcement officials said.

A swarm of federal agents arrested the suspect, Kevin W. Harpham, 36, near his home outside rural Colville, Wash., and searched the property. A law enforcement official said it was not clear whether the accused had acted alone.
The official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said Mr. Harpham was not someone investigators had tracked before this case.
A cleanup crew first found the bomb in a backpack left on a bench in downtown Spokane on Jan. 17, shortly before a march celebrating the King holiday that day. Investigators called the device very sophisticated and capable of causing multiple casualties.

Investigators said the timing of the incident suggested a racial motive, and the case has stirred fears in the inland Northwest, a region with a history of white supremacy and racially motivated crimes. The case has been investigated as domestic terrorism.

Law enforcement officials would not say whether Mr. Harpham had links to extremist groups. But the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks such groups, said that its research showed that Mr. Harpham was a member of the National Alliance as recently as 2004.

In a blog post on Wednesday, the center described the National Alliance as a once prominent neo-Nazi group that “has fallen on hard times since the 2002 death of its founder, William Pierce.” Mr. Pierce is the author of “The Turner Diaries,” a novel noted for having inspired Timothy J. McVeigh’s bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building in 1995.

Mr. Harpham served in the Army for several years. From June 1996 to February 1999, he was a fire support specialist in the First Battalion, 37th Field Artillery Regiment, at what is now called Joint Base Lewis-McChord, south of Seattle.
He is charged with attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and possession of an unregistered explosive device. More charges could be filed.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/10/us/10bomb.html?_r=1&src=un&feedurl=http%3A%2F%2Fjson8.nytimes.com%2Fpages%2Fnational%2Findex.jsonp