3.01.2004
OK Bombing Revisited: A Web of Right Wing Extremists?
Why would the FBI destroy evidence that would widen the search for those responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah building that Timothy McVeigh got lone credit for?
The site imtv is a really good news source, I gleaned this story there..
A white supremacist group of bankrobbers, the Aryan Republican Army may have been involved in the bombing of the Murrah building. The FBI has that McVeigh called the Oklahoma "compound" that some of the bankrobbers were staying at, possibly to find accomplices for the action that took 168 innocent lives.
Physical evidence linking McVeigh and the white supremacists was augmented by statements of the robbers as well as a girlfriend. Agents ruled this evidence out on the basis of an alibi provided by the bank robbers- an alibi contradicted by one of them and which was shown to be false in light of car sales records that showed them to still be in the Oklahoma City area
at the time of the bombing.
A bank surveillance video that may have been able to link McVeigh to the group was found to be "inconclusive" in identifying
the convicted then executed "lone bomber"; the video was later destroyed, against FBI standard protocol.
Blasting caps that may have linked McVeigh to the extremist group were, in another incident, also destroyed.
The article explains that Dan Defenbaugh, FBI chief of the McVeigh investigation (now-retired) never was made aware of
evidence linking McVeigh to this larger web of extremists.
Read the article, this synopsis doesn't do it justice.
Back in 2001, McVeighs defense attorneys argued that they needed more time, recieving thousands of pages of evidence, videos and photographsa week before his May 16 initial execution date. John Ashcroft gave them 30 days to do this.
"Thirty days, actually three weeks, was not enough time for us to read over 4,000 pages of documents, view the videos and the photographs that we got and conduct an investigation into what we believe is truly some very important excluded ... material by the FBI," attorney Chris Tritico said shortly after filing the appeal.
The appeal states that, if given the time, McVeigh's lawyers could show the FBI suppressed credible evidence that other people played a significant role in the bombing, which may change the jury's view of McVeigh's role and moral guilt in the bombing.
"There was also evidence, withheld by the government, that another person could well have been the mastermind behind the bombing," the appeal said. "Mr. McVeigh ... does not claim that the withheld evidence could change the guilty verdicts for murder. He does claim ... that he was denied due process when the prosecution withheld evidence concerning participation by others."
In fact, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch did not let an ATF informant who had passed multiple polygraph tests testify
with information that showed there was a larger conspiracy around the bombing of the Murrah building. Information that showed the ATF had foreknowledge of the blast. Information linking McVeigh to Elohim City, a 240 acre "compound" near Muldrow, Oklahoma that sported a guest list purported to be "a Who's Who of the radical right".
The spiritual leader at Elohim City is the Reverend Robert Millar. Elohim City had a close association with the Christian Identity Movement and The Covenant, the Sword and the Arm of the Lord which had its own grievance
against the United States government. See D.E. 2191 at 33. The federal government conducted a raid on the CSA on April 19, 1985--exactly ten years to the day prior to the Oklahoma City bombing. See Id. at 33-34; D.E. 2840
(Pretrial Conference: Volume m--Sealed, January 1997 at 181). Members of the CSA now reside at Elohim City.
One of the members of CSA turned on the organization and testified at the trial of Richard Snell in Arkansas. Snell was on trial with others on charges of sedition--that they conspired to destroy the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City with a rocket launcher in the early 1980s. Id. Snell was convicted on unrelated capital charges, sentenced to death in Arkansas, and
was executed on the very day of the bombing in Oklahoma City--April 19, 1995. Id. One of his last statments [sic] before he was executed was, "Governor, look over your shoulder, justice is coming." D.E. 3410 at 16 (Pretrial Hearing--SEALED--Not Provided to Defendant Nichols, March 10, 1997). (Information in public press reports). His body is buried at Elohim City.
The above quote is from Petition for a Writ of Mandamus of Petitioner-Defendant, Timothy James McVeigh and Brief in Support, a legal action his lawyers instituted to bring about a reviewing of a district judge's denial of discovery motions. Pretty intriguing stuff. If you have time you should give it a look. The McVeigh case is not as nearly cut and dried as mainstream media would have us believe.
Terry Nichols faces state murder charges for 160 people killed, plus a charge for the baby of a pregnant victim. Nichols is already serving time for the deaths of eight federal agents in the Murrah blast. He now faces the Oklahoma death penalty.
His attorneys plan to bring the existence of a far ranging bombing plot into play in Nichols defense; Aryan Republican Army bank robber Peter Kevin Langan Jr is thought to be a witness for the defense; Langan claims to have hard evidence linking five individuals to the bombing.
3/01/2004
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