No Charges to Be Filed in Bombing : Investigations: Prosecutors say they don’t have enough evidence to bring 2 Earth First! activists to trial.

Alameda County prosecutors announced Tuesday that they have decided not to file charges against two Earth First! activists injured in May when a pipe bomb exploded in their car.

“There’s not sufficient evidence to ensure a conviction,” Assistant Dist. Atty. Chris Carpenter said. “The police are going to continue to investigate the case.”

Police had said they suspected that the two members of the radical environmentalist organization were transporting the bomb and that it went off accidentally.

The FBI has yet to rule out any suspects, but environmentalist Darryl Cherney, 33, said the prosecutors’ decision shows that he and fellow activist Judi Bari, 40, had no idea the bomb was there and were victims of a murder attempt. Still, Cherney said, he and Bari will not rest easy until someone is charged with planting the bomb in Bari’s Subaru almost two months ago.

“I’m worried about some bozo out there with a bomb,” Cherney said. “My happiness with the district attorney’s decision not to prosecute is tempered by the fact that there’s a would-be assassin of environmentalists who’s still on the loose and not being looked for.”

The prosecutors’ announcement followed a month of battling between Earth First! supporters and investigators, both sides struggling to sway public opinion in the case.

Bari and Cherney announced that Bari’s injuries to the back of her legs and her pelvis showed that the bomb was under the front seat and not in plain view as police had said. Investigators countered by saying they had matched nails from the pipe bomb to nails found in Bari’s garage.

Cheney suffered minor cuts and a perforated eardrum in the explosion. Bari suffered serious injuries that included a fractured pelvis, abdominal injuries and nerve damage. According to Earth First! spokesmen, Bari is in a Santa Rosa rehabilitation center.

On Monday, environmental and civil rights leaders joined two Oakland lawmakers in charging that the police had mishandled the case. The alliance, which included leaders of more than 50 environmental, women’s and civil liberties groups, as well as Rep. Ron Dellums (D-Oakland), called on Congress and the state attorney general’s office to conduct independent investigations of the police and FBI investigations.

The group charged that the police and FBI have overlooked possible links between the May 24 explosion in Oakland and death threats Bari has received since she became active in anti-logging protests, including the “Redwood Summer” campaign.

“This just reinforces our belief all along, which is that they had no case because they had no evidence,” said Mike Roselle, a founder of Earth First!.

FBI officials, however, said that the investigation is not over.

“We’re still trying to determine the responsible person or persons,” FBI spokeswoman Kathleen Mahoney said.