
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, April 26, 1995                   TAG: 9504260124
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: The Boston Globe
DATELINE: OKLAHOMA CITY                                LENGTH: Medium

MICHIGAN BROTHERS CHARGED

Two brothers held as material witnesses in the bombing here were charged Tuesday in Michigan with conspiring to make bombs several years ago with the chief suspect in the case.

An FBI affidavit supporting the criminal complaint against James and Terry Nichols described them as antigovernment extremists who had experimented at bomb-making with chief suspect Timothy McVeigh as far back as 1987 at James Nichols' northeast Michigan farm.

As the official death toll rose to 96 from last Wednesday's bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, rescue work bogged down and hopes for survivors faded. Meanwhile, the federal investigation produced chemical evidence on McVeigh's clothes linking the 27-year-old ex-Army sergeant directly to the Oklahoma bomb, law enforcement sources said.

In Washington, a federal law enforcement official said the vehicle McVeigh was driving when he was stopped for traffic violations shortly after the bombing showed traces of nitrates and high explosive, but that it was not yet possible to conclusively link them to the bombing.

CNN reported that McVeigh was refusing to speak to authorities, claiming he was a political prisoner. It said McVeigh would give only his name, rank and serial number - the only information a prisoner of war gives his captors.

In Kansas, federal authorities were probing a report that a huge amount of dynamite and blasting caps was stolen from a quarry near Junction City, Kan., and may have been used in the nation's worst terrorist attack.

The FBI also released an enhanced portrait of ``John Doe No. 2,'' the man who helped McVeigh rent a truck in Junction City that was was believed used to carry the fertilizer-fuel oil bomb detonated in Oklahoma City.

The criminal complaint against the Nichols brothers, brought in Milan, Mich., does not tie them to the Oklahoma bombing. It alleges they and McVeigh - who was charged last week in the Oklahoma bombing - met on numerous occasions at the Decker, Mich., farm to build and test a variety of homemade bombs from 1987 through 1994.

The criminal complaint allows federal authorities to continue holding the Nichols brothers, who previously had been in custody only as material witnesses.

by CNB