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Made car into bomb, Klan leader quoted

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

A Ku Klux Klan leader charged with firearms violations told an undercover informant that he had converted his car into a suicide bomb, authorities said yesterday.

David Hull, 40, of Amwell, Washington County, was arrested last week by federal agents who said he built pipe bombs and had attempted to obtain hand grenades for an abortion clinic bombing.

Hull is self-declared Imperial Wizard of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, a faction that grew out of the defunct Invisible Empire Klan. Hull also has connections with various members of both factions of the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations.

The revelations about a car bomb as well as allegations Hull had made homemade guns, had given an illegal silencer to an informant and planned to conduct military training at Klan gatherings came in a document submitted by prosecutors during a hearing in U.S. District Court yesterday.

The document, a government brief arguing against bail, also said that late last year, Hull told the informant that he was lining up recruits for an unspecified illegal act and that "he is not afraid to get killed shooting it out."

Hull is being held without bond and awaits a ruling tomorrow by federal Magistrate Ervin Swearingen on whether he will get it.

The government document said that a witness said Hull detonated two pipe bombs during a cross burning on Hull's property in midsummer of last year. "We normally make them bigger," Hull told the informant.

During a 90-minute hearing yesterday, Hull's defense lawyer, Khadija Diggs, suggested her client had been entrapped.

She also suggested that while Hull had provided pipe, end caps and powder that could be used to assemble a bomb, he had not built a bomb.

Questioning agent Louis Weiers of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Diggs remarked, "What you're basically alleging is that pieces of what could be a pipe bomb were given by Mr. Hull to a confidential witness."

Testifying on Hull's behalf were a neighbor, the Rev. Bruce Brandel of In Christ Community Fellowship, and Hull's father, Dwight. Both men said they would monitor Hull's conduct if he is granted bond.