Areas of the City of London were brought to a standstill yesterday after bomb threats were issued by the Animal Liberation Front, which was protesting against a controversial animal laboratory.
The hoax calls were made against major shareholders in Huntingdon Life Sciences, a Cambridgeshire laboratory condemned by the government three years ago and in which the Labour party's pension fund was recently found to have an investment.
An ALF spokesman, while refusing to confirm that the organisation had threatened up to eight City institutions, said the action was probably timed to coincide with today's "national campaign" against shareholders in the laboratory.
Among the firms whose offices were evacuated after yesterday's threats were Legal & General and Phillips & Drew, both highly-respected fund management groups.
Police refused to confirm the identity of the companies, but said hoax calls at just before 11am from the ALF threatened a series of explosions between 11.15am and 11.30am.
Evacuations saw thousands of office workers spilling out on to the streets of the City in Lombard Street, Aldgate and Cheapside. Barclays bank also received a hoax call and evacuated its head office for four hours.
The Huntingdon laboratory first sparked controversy in April 1997 after conditions at the Cambridgeshire research centre were declared to be unsatisfactory. Its licence was revoked for six months.
Phillips & Drew said it was unaware that the threat was connected to Huntingdon, in which it still holds an 11% stake.
Its holding was exposed a fortnight ago when it emerged that it had invested money for the Labour party's pension scheme in the company. The Labour party said last week that P&D had since sold the 75,000 Huntingdon shares in which its pension fund had invested.
As of yesterday, Legal & General no longer held any shares in Huntingdon. Until recently, it had a 4% stake in the company, which it said it had "inherited" from clients in its funds.
