Stay of execution for Timothy McVeigh?

Timothy McVeigh is scheduled to be executed on Wednesday May 16, at the US Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. He was convicted of bombing the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1995, causing the deaths of 168 people. His death would be the first federal execution since 1963, and there has been no official move to postpone it yet. “His execution ends what has been a de facto moratorium on capital punishment at federal level for 38 years. That’s very serious,” Hands off Cain Secretary Sergio D’Elia said. The anti-death penalty NGO plans to protest against McVeigh’s execution in front of the American Embassy in Rome, and relaunch its online campaign for a global moratorium on capital executions through a UN resolution. Its protest will concur with demonstrations held by the large number of protesters expected to convene at Terre Haute. Pope John Paul II also appealed for pardon for McVeigh, but his request was firmly turned down by U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney.McVeigh took sole responsibility for the worst act of terrorism on American soil ever in a recently published book called “American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing”. McVeigh, who co-operated with the book project, for the first time acknowledged blowing up the Murrah Building to avenge the 1992 government siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, during which an FBI sniper killed the wife and son of separatist Randy Weaver, and the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian religious sect near Waco, Texas, in which about 80 people were killed, including 22 children. A decorated Gulf War veteran, McVeigh expressed no remorse for the bombing, and caused outrage when he called the children who died in the bombing “collateral damage” even though he insisted that he did not know that the building housed a day-care centre. He did not take the stand in his own defence during the trial, but told the book’s authors that “My decision to take human life at the Murrah building – I did not do it for personal gain... I did it for the larger good.”John R. Smith, a court-appointed psychiatrist who evaluated McVeigh for 25 hours in 1995, concluded that his patient was deeply depressed and singularly focused, but not insane. "I´m sorry, but he is not evil," said Smith, who was given permission by McVeigh to talk publicly about their sessions together. "This was an isolated incident which occurred because he was an idealistic young man," Smith said. "He was determined to broadcast to the world his belief that the federal government had become excessively oppressive and deceitful." Smith does not believe that McVeigh, if he had the opportunity, would engage in violence again. "It was a one-time crime." McVeigh dropped his appeals in December 2000 preferring to expedite his death, and is now withholding approval for his lawyers to seek a stay of execution.However "we´re considering all our options," McVeigh lawyer Nathan Chambers told The Associated Press after the FBI documents, used in a separate trial involving McVeigh´s co-defendant Terry Nichols, were delivered to his office in Denver. An FBI archivist discovered the 3,000 withheld documents as all the materials related to the case were being compiled, CNN said. The U.S. attorney in Denver informed his defence team and the federal court in Denver of what the FBI called an oversight. It had only just discovered that investigatory documents, including reports on FBI interviews, photographs, letters and tapes, were withheld from McVeigh’s defence. The admission has raised the conspiracy theory again. Stephen Jones, McVeigh’s main attorney when his trial started but later fired, contended than McVeigh was part of a larger conspiracy, and that he was taking sole responsibility to protect others. McVeigh recently sparked more controversy when he declared himself in favour of his execution being webcast live. Leading abolitionist Sister Helen Prejean, of ‘Dead Man Walking’ fame, also came out in favour of his execution being broadcast. She called him the “symbol of the death penalty” and said “taking revenge executing him will only have negative effects.”Media reports in various European and American papers also expressed themselves in favour of broadcasting the execution to show up the reality of the death penalty. However the execution will only be shown to about 300 people - either family members of the 168 people killed in the April 19, 1995 bombing or those who were injured - who confirmed to the Justice Department they wanted to see the closed-circuit telecast from Terra Haute, Indiana. These are just a small fraction of the 2,300 listed by the U.S. attorney´s office as victims and survivors.Not all the families of the victims are united in believing that McVeigh should be killed. Bud Welch, whose daughter Julie Marie, 23, was killed in the bombing says “the execution of Timothy McVeigh will not bring Julie back or her colleagues, nor will it end the grieving for any one of the victims of the Oklahoma City bombing. Revenge and hate are the reasons the 168 people died that day in 1995. I oppose the death penalty absolutely, in all cases, because in all cases it is an act of revenge and hatred.”Leon Hoffman, M.D., chair of the committee on public information of the American Psychoanalytic Association warned “guilt, remorse and sadness are one group of pathological feelings that may very well befall onlookers on May 16. And watching the execution may also stimulate sadistic feelings in the survivors and victims´ families, and they may subsequently feel guilty about - or even be frightened by - this sadistic pleasure. Depression, irritability or nightmares would be an unsurprising consequence. “One response is inevitable, though. Regardless of any individual´s particular reaction to witnessing the execution, missing feelings for loved ones will certainly not disappear with the elimination of McVeigh.” The McVeigh case is seen as a setback to the abolitionist cause. The heinous nature of his crime helped convince several death penalty foes that an exception should be made in his case, according to a USA today poll of 1,015 adults conducted nationwide in the US on April 20-22. The poll found that 59% of Americans generally support the death penalty and believe McVeigh should receive it; 22% generally oppose the death penalty but support executing McVeigh and 16% generally oppose capital punishment even in McVeigh’s case. The FBI’s admission of withheld evidence has given a new lease of hope to those opposing McVeigh’s execution.“Perhaps there will be a stay. Hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. Do not stand down until there is a definitive answer,” Abraham Bonowitz, of the Citizens United for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, urged abolitionists worldwide. The CUADP along with Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Indiana Citizens to Abolish Capital Punishment, and others will be holding a "Circle of Silent Witness," as from 168 minutes before McVeigh´s scheduled execution time on May 16. The 168 minutes will represent each of McVeigh´s victims and protesters will maintain a silent circle while they meditate or pray.