Timothy McVeigh pronounced dead at 14:14 CET

Oklahoma city bomber Timothy McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection at the Terre Haute federal penitentiary in Indiana at 7a.m. local time. Hands of Cain secretary, Sergio D’Elia, said “the United States have today executed Timothy McVeigh, a Cain of our times, guilty of a horrible crime. Since he was without a shadow of a doubt a Cain, nobody showed mercy. Neither Italy nor Europe came out against his execution as they did in other cases because he was not an ‘easy’ case: a presumed innocent, a minor, a woman or a mentally retarded person to save. With this execution President Bush, whose passage from Governor of Texas to the White House is littered with legally executed corpses, has brought to an end a 38 year long de facto moratorium on federal executions. He has shown to the world the United States in its true colours, those of an executioner.” Hands Off Cain militants protested against McVeigh’s execution in front of the American embassy in Rome. However, unlike other cases McVeigh’s execution did not raise much public solidarity, even in Italy, a traditionally anti-death penalty state. McVeigh was executed for the April 19th, 1995 bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah federal building that killed 168 people and wounded hundreds more. It was the first federal execution since 1963. McVeigh’s execution, originally scheduled for May 16th, had already been postponed due to the revelation that the F.B.I. had withheld evidence from McVeigh’s defence lawyers during the trial in which he was sentenced to death. A request for a stay of execution filed by McVeigh’s defence team in order to study thoroughly the over 4,400 documents was denied by both U.S. district judge Richard Matsch and the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. McVeigh chose last week not to appeal the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court. His death was watched by approximately 230 survivors and relatives of the victims of the bombing on close circuit TV, in a room near the scene of the catastrophe in Oklahoma city. Ten survivors and victims’ family members were chosen by lottery to witness the execution. Federal prison authorities placed a needle in Timothy McVeigh’s right leg, pumping a deadly stream of drugs into his veins. He took 14 minutes to die. Witnesses said McVeigh lifted his head and made eye contact with them before the drugs took effect. Then he looked at the ceiling and slowly closed his eyes. He made no final statement.