Klan sect leader sentenced for pipe bomb

Associated Press/February 25, 2005

Pittsburgh -- The leader of a Ku Klux Klan splinter group was sentenced to 12 years in prison Friday in what prosecutors said was the nation's first conviction under a new anti-terror law.

David Wayne Hull, 42, was convicted of teaching a government informant posing as an anti-abortion activist how to use a pipe bomb at a November 2002 white supremacist gathering on Hull's property south of Pittsburgh.

Federal prosecutors said Hull also gave the informant parts to make a bomb.

The 2002 anti-terror statute bans instructing others how to use pipe bombs or other dangerous weapons to commit a crime. It carries a maximum 20-year prison sentence.

Hull testified at his May trial that he suspected the informant might be working for the government so he didn't give him a fuse along with the other bomb parts.

Hull's group, the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, had a Web site showing his picture and address, but it was taken down after he was indicted. Authorities believe the group is now defunct.