SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian police raided on Thursday the Sydney headquarters of Greenpeace after activists from the environmental group broke into the country's top science agency to destroy a trial plot of genetically modified wheat.
Three Greenpeace activists, wearing hazard suits, used garden strimmers to cut down a trial crop in a pre-dawn raid last week near the Canberra headquarters of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, or CSIRO.
A police spokesman said a search warrant had been executed at the head office of GreenpeaceAustralia in relation to "an alleged trespass and property damage at CSIRO in Canberra."
He said no one had been arrested in the operation.
The crop raid, which has been heavily criticised by scientists and farm groups, destroyed grain from genetically modified wheat and barley plants which researchers had hoped would improve health and help lower disease risk.
Australia's Office of the Gene Technology Regulator said the risk to humans or the environment from the destroyed trial crop had been negligible, while the CSIRO said months of research would have to begin again.
Greenpeace Head of Campaigns Steve Campbell said the organisation would cooperate with police, but it was about time Australians focussed on the risks posed by GM crops and foods.
"There are serious risks associated with GM wheat experiments, risks to Australia's health, our environment and our economy. To date, information on these risks has been ignored and covered up by our government," Campbell said in a statement.
(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
