ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, March 31, 1997 TAG: 9703310107
SECTION: NATL/INTL PAGE: A-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DENVER
SOURCE: LOS ANGELES TIMES
And now there's a report that the IRA supplied the detonator used in the Oklahoma City bombing.
Two years in prison have not changed the man.
Timothy James McVeigh is still the thin, serious, pale-skinned figure the nation first glimpsed on the day of his arrest, escorted out of an Oklahoma courthouse in waistcuffs and leg irons, damned by a jeering mob as the worst mass murderer in U.S. history.
He still greets you with a look from cold blue eyes, still proclaims his innocence, still demands a jury trial.
Yet this morning, when at last McVeigh goes on trial, there is one difference from two years ago: The case against him does not seem nearly as solid as it once did.
Can prosecutors prove that this decorated Army veteran of the Persian Gulf War acted alone in driving a bomb-laden, yellow Ryder rental truck to the circular drive outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City at 9:02 a.m. on April 19, 1995?
The government still cannot place the 28-year-old defendant at the site of the explosion that killed 168 women, children and men and injured 500 others. It cannot place in his hands the ammonium nitrate used in the bomb. It also has no confession, despite the leak of several reported McVeigh ``confessions'' that have tumbled into media reports in recent weeks.
What prosecutors do have is a case that rests largely on circumstantial evidence.
Witnesses have identified McVeigh as the nervous customer who rented the truck two days before the bombing. His jeans, T-shirt, knife and ear plugs reportedly were covered with forensic evidence matching chemical components found in the truck. And he had ranted for years against perceived government abuses, especially the 1993 FBI raid at the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Texas.
But his defense lawyers have woven a pattern of doubt into the government's case.
They have highlighted widespread problems of contamination at the once-famed FBI crime lab, where McVeigh's clothing was examined. They have conjured conspiracy theories indicating others may have had a larger role in the bombing. They have hinted about foreign terrorist cells operating in the Philippines and Europe.
And the defense lawyers hold a wild card - the FBI mug shot of John Doe No.2, the elusive second suspect. Federal authorities say they now think McVeigh had no such companion, but the defense will argue that change of heart is an attempt to snip off a loose end that could tangle the prosecution's case.
His lawyers hope to use those doubts to persuade jurors that McVeigh is innocent - or to let him live if there is evidence that co-conspirators were permitted to go free.
This morning, hundreds of residents of the Denver area and eastern Colorado are to converge in the second-floor courtroom of U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch for the start of jury selection.
Prosecutors in Denver will say McVeigh could not control his hatred for what happened at Waco. They will argue that Waco was the catalyst - his spark, his trigger. Oklahoma City was his revenge.
The critical pieces of prosecution evidence:
A dealer at the Mid-Kansas Co-Op in McPherson, Kan., who thinks it was McVeigh and co-defendant Terry L. Nichols - who will be tried separately - who bought large bags of ammonium nitrate in the fall of 1994.
Fingerprints on a sales receipt for ammonium nitrate that match McVeigh's.
Two employees at the Ryder agency in Junction City, Kan., who swear that McVeigh rented the truck two days before the bombing.
A service station attendant in Billings, Okla., just across the state line from Kansas, who remembers McVeigh pulling in shortly after midnight April 19 on his way south, in the direction of Oklahoma City.
Debris found in FBI crime lab examinations of McVeigh's clothing, knife and ear plugs matching that from materials found on a piece of board in the truck.
But is that enough to convict McVeigh? Is that enough to put a man to death?
The government also has compiled letters, phone calls and conversations with his sister, Jennifer McVeigh. He wrote to a friend in New York during his years wandering the country, venting against the government and insisting that something must be done to take back America.
There are similar letters and phone calls and conversations with his sister, expected to be a key government witness - albeit a hostile one.
But most importantly, there is the prosecution's own secret arsenal - Michael and Lori Fortier of Kingman, Ariz.
Michael Fortier is a former Army buddy of both McVeigh and Nichols, a longtime McVeigh chum when they lived together in the Southwest desert. Prosecutors say he will testify that McVeigh let him in on his plans to destroy the Murrah building. Fortier's wife is expected to describe how McVeigh arranged soup cans in their house to show how large barrels are assembled to make a truck bomb.
The Fortiers are the government's star witnesses. But McVeigh's defense attorneys call them liars.
Michael Fortier at first insisted to authorities that his friend could not have done such a terrible crime. Lori Fortier agreed. But later, faced with their own criminal culpability, the Fortiers crumbled.
Michael Fortier ultimately pleaded guilty to charges of knowing about the bombing but doing nothing to stop it. He received a 23-year prison term, with the promise of a reduction in years if his testimony helps nail McVeigh and Nichols. As part of the deal, Lori, who also must testify, was permitted to go free.
Meanwhile, a British newspaper, The Sunday Telegraph, reported Sunday that the IRA had supplied the detonator used in the bombing, citing documents filed by McVeigh's lawyers that say a neo-Nazi cell had been conspiring to blow up a U.S. federal building in early 1995 and had received assistance from Sinn Fein.
Sinn Fein is a legal political party allied with the outlawed Irish Republican Army, which has been fighting for more than 25 years to end British rule in Northern Ireland.
Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams denied the allegations.
The Sunday Telegraph said the source of the allegations about Sinn Fein-IRA involvement is Carol Howe, a U.S. government informer.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.
LENGTH: Long : 121 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: ASSOCIATED PRESS. Cindy Barger and her son, Nicholas,by CNBmourn the 168 victims Sunday at the remains of the federal building
in Oklahoma City. color.