Just to recap: Terry Nichols is being tried in a state court for murder for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995. Nichols was already convicted in a federal court and is serving life. The state of Oklahoma wants him also for the deaths of their citizens. Nichols defense includes the argument that McVeigh had numerous other co-conspirators.
I absolutely think that Nichols conspired in the bombing, is guilty, and should have gotten the death penalty.
However, I'm also convinced that McVeigh had other conspirators with him in Oklahoma City that day and I want them brought to justice also. I finished reading Jayna Davis's definitive book "The Third Terrorist" and I think it's clear and convincing on the presence of Middle Eastern terrorists in the plot that day. If you haven't read it, you need to. Lot's of witnesses to Middle Eastern men with McVeigh. None of them called to testify. Why?
It's important to remember a few facts:
1. Nichols was in Kansas on that day, April 19th. Did he conspire to build the bomb. Absolutely, I'm convinced of that. Davis presents the evidence that Nichols travelled to the Phillipines to learn bombmaking from Ramsi Yousef. Yousef built the bomb for the World Trade Center in 1993 and was connected to Al Qaida and Bin Laden. And Nichols spent time with him. But he was not present when the bomb was constructed and delivered.
2. There are witnesses that saw McVeigh with other people in OKC that morning. Several witnesses. They got to testify in Nichols trial. A quote from the Associated Press in USA Today:
Defense attorneys allege that other coconspirators gave McVeigh substantial help in planning the bombing. They put several witnesses on the stand who said they saw McVeigh with another man who was not Nichols in the days and even the moments before the bombing.
If it wasn't Nichols, and it wasn't, who was it who helped McVeigh deliver the bomb downtown.
3. There are ample witnesses who place McVeigh in Elohim City, a white supremacist group in Oklahoma before the bombing. More co-conspirators. You can read about them in Ambrose Evans-Pritchard's excellent book "The Secret Life of Bill Clinton". But you can't read about them in the trial transcripts of this trial. Why? The judge said so:
An April 21 ruling by Taylor kept the defense from calling hundreds of other planned witnesses. He said there was no substance to defense allegations that McVeigh had links to a gang of white supremacist bank robbers and residents of Elohim City, a separatist enclave in eastern Oklahoma.
No substance? Why not hear from the witnesses and let the jury make that decision?
When are we going to get to hear from these witnesses under oath?
No comments:
Post a Comment