Eco-activist pleads guilty to slaughterhouse arson

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — A Seattle man has pleaded guilty to federal arson charges involving a fire that destroyed an Oregon horse slaughterhouse more than two decades ago. Oregon Public Broadcasting reports Joseph Dibee pleaded guilty Thursday in Portland, Oregon, to federal arson and conspiracy to commit arson charges. Dibee also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit arson in California for his role in a 2001 fire that burned a pole barn at a Bureau of Land Management wild horse facility. Prosecutors say that in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Dibee joined about a dozen animal rights and environmental activists in setting fires around the West. Cuban authorities detained Dibee in 2018.