UPDATED 6/8/09 – Since this post was originally published, another grave belonging to a member of Novartis Chief Executive Daniel Vasella’s family has been desecrated (Reuters).

The CEO of drug company Novartis has had his mother’s ashes stolen by animal rights activists in Switzerland. Because nothing says “my cause is righteous” like a bit of grave robbing.

“There have been a series of terrorist-like attacks on individuals and company buildings. Last week, the graves of [Novartis CEO Daniel] Vasella’s parents were desecrated and the urn with the ashes of his mother was stolen,” a company spokesman told Reuters.

This is not the first time animal activists have resorted to grave robbing in support of their utterly moronic campaign. In 2004 the owners of a guinea pig farm had the body of a relative exhumed and stolen. It was later recovered.

According to the new reports, Vasella has also seen his hunting lodge in Austria burned down by those who want his company to sever ties with the company Huntingdon Life Sciences. Activists have sprayed “Drop HLS Now” on gravestones (AP).

A Novartis spokeswoman told the Wall Street Journal the company “does not work with HLS and has not for many years”.

“It is important that people realize that it is not possible to discover novel products…which save thousands of human lives every year without some use of animal data, which is required by regulatory authorities,” she added.

Swiss newspaper Blick has a number of disturbing stories about these attacks on Novartis employees and other incidents.