More McVeigh files found, says report

By Sridhar Krishnaswami

WASHINGTON, MAY 15. The Federal Bureau of Investigation came under more fire as The Los Angeles Times reported that some more material relating to Timothy McVeigh's case had been found in Baltimore, Maryland.

And the FBI, according to the newspaper, has ordered its offices all over the world to go through their files looking for documents that have not been turned over to the lawyers of McVeigh. McVeigh was due to be executed by a dose of lethal injection at a federal facility in Terre Haute, Indiana, on May 16 for the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 that killed 168 persons, including 19 children. The bombing has been billed as the worst act of domestic terrorism. The finding of seven more documents in Baltimore, in the view of the FBI and government sources, does not materially alter the conviction that had been handed down in 1997. But the general impression is that should ``more'' material turn up, it will be all the more embarrassing to the FBI. The Attorney- General has maintained that he will go through with the execution of McVeigh on June 11 after having delayed the date by a month in the light of recent developments. But lawyers for McVeigh have not stated if their client will seek a further delay or even a new trial. Meanwhile, McVeigh, in a one-page letter written to a Houston newspaper, has once again rejected assertions by his former attorney, Mr. Stephen Jones, that there was another person involved in the 1995 bombing. The contention had been that a man who came to be known as ``John Doe Number Two'' accompanied McVeigh to the Alfred Murrah building on April 19, 1995, but was killed in the blast. At the time of the bombing, investigators believed that there was another person based on eye-witness reports but discounted this possibility later. ``The truth is on my side,'' McVeigh told the Houston paper.

Even as McVeigh's lawyers are considering the implications of the FBI bungling, Terry Nichols who was convicted of manslaughter and conspiracy in the 1995 bombing and serving a life sentence in prison, is now asking the U.S. Supreme Court to consider whether the new FBI documents could cast doubt on his guilt. Nichols has always maintained the existence of another person in the deadly blast. ``The identity of Mr. McVeigh's primary co-conspirator, John Doe No.2, was a key issue in Mr. Nichol's trial defence and the withheld (documents) regarding the identity of that person went to the heart'' of Nichol's request for reconsideration, his lawyers have written.

Acquitted on federal charges of first and second degree murder, Nichols is now serving time in a Oklahoma City prison and local prosecutors are looking at the possibility of bringing State capital murder charges.

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Section  : International
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