organisation.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) blasted reports that it was a "mouthpiece'' for the direct action Animal Liberation Front.

The claims were made by Bermudian student Mr. Kamathi Warner who questioned the arrival of PETA President, Mr. Alex Pacheco in Bermuda, claiming he was a terrorist.

In a letter from PETA's Washington headquarters, Senior Writer Ms Christine Jackson said: "The attack on Alex Pacheco was false and irresponsible. PETA is dedicated to pursuing the truth about animal suffering and serving the public -- hardly terrorist activities.

"The ALF, a separate entity, is an anonymous organisation whose members' identities are unknown, sometimes even to one another. PETA has no control over the ALF and similar groups.

"When we receive videotapes, documents or other materials exposing abuse of animals in laboratories and violations of the federal law we place them in the public domain. We also give them to members of Congress and those agencies charged with enforcement of animal cruelty laws. That is all.'' The Animal Liberation Front is infamous in both the US and the UK for its daring raids on establishments where members believe animal cruelty exists.

In Britain they have claimed responsibility for attacks on laboratories, "battery'' farms and various stores selling furs.

In defence of those actions, Ms Jackson said: "ALF raids have uncovered terrible abuses ignored for years by Government -- for example the grotesque head injury experiments on baboons at the University of Pennsylvania.

"We wish the ALF did not have to exist, but for animals suffering in laboratories, on factory farms and fur ranches, ALF members are their only salvation.

"As an organisation committed to lawful remedies to end animal exploitation, we remain exasperated by a lack of action on the part of the US Department of Agriculture, the National Institutes of Health and the entrenched positions of those, like furriers, who have chosen to make a living off animals' pain and slaughter.'' Ms Jackson pointed out that no-one had ever been harmed by actions of the ALF in the US, and they were committed to a policy of non-violence unlike the people involved in experiments.

She said: "PETA spends its resources investigating charges of animal cruelty and educating the public.

"Had a human liberation front existed during the Second World War, surely few would have condemned activists who broke into a concentration camp and rendered its gas chambers unusable or rescued prisoners.''