Hands Off Cain to demonstrate against McVeigh execution

Above: the Terre Haute compound were McVeigh is to be executed.


June 8, 2001: Timothy McVeigh will be executed by lethal injection at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana on June 11 at 13.00 CET. Hands Off Cain will start its vigil in front of the American Embassy in Via Veneto in Rome at 11.00, in protest against his execution.McVeigh was convicted of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people. He will be the first person to die under a federal conviction after a 38-year de facto moratorium. His execution was originally scheduled for May 16, but US Attorney-General John Ashcroft delayed it until June 11 after the FBI admitted it failed to hand over 4,400 documents to his defence attorneys.
"He had prepared himself to die prior to the initial execution date of May 16, and he now again wants to make the final preparations necessary to be ready to die on Monday," his lawyer, Rob Nigh, said.
Yesterday the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals backed a lower court ruling and denied defence pleas to postpone the execution.
On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch rejected claims that the government had committed a "fraud upon the court" by failing to disclose the missing FBI documents before McVeigh´s trial.
The FBI disclosed the documents last month, just days before McVeigh´s original execution date.Matsch said defense lawyers failed to prove that any of those documents called into question McVeigh´s guilt, and ruled assertions that others may have been involved in the bombing did nothing to lessen McVeigh´s role.
In a seven-page ruling Thursday afternoon, the 10th Circuit Court said McVeigh "utterly failed" to show the court why Matsch´s ruling should be overturned.
McVeigh´s lawyers wanted more time to review the FBI documents for information they felt could have helped in his defence during the 1997 trial. They argued the documents could have proved McVeigh played a lesser role in the bombing and that others may have masterminded the attack. That could have persuaded the jury to sentence him to life in prison instead of death, they said. Nigh said serious questions about the FBI´s conduct in the case were brushed aside because of the horror of the Oklahoma City bombing. As a result, the FBI "simply is not held to answer" for withholding information from defence lawyers.
"We believe that the rule of law has been brushed aside because of the nature of the case," he said. Added Richard Burr, another of McVeigh´s lawyers, "There has never been a case that has tested the fairness of our judicial system like this one, and we have not passed the test very well." McVeigh´s lawyers urged him to consider a request for clemency from the White House, but he considered that "a meaningless gesture," Nigh said.
"He was not going to ask President Bush to spare his life," Nigh said.