Nichols called senator 2 days before bombing

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols called former Sen. Nancy Kassebaum Baker's office two days before the bombing to complain about the deadly end of the Branch Davidian standoff in Texas, an aide to the former senator testified today.

"He was very stern and told us about his thinking on the matter," said Lee Ellen Alexander, who worked for the former Kansas senator.

She said Nichols also complained about gun laws and former Attorney General Janet Reno. Alexander heard days later that Nichols, who was living in Kansas at the time, was a suspect in the bombing. The April 19, 1995, bombing came on the second anniversary of the fiery end of the Branch Davidian siege in Waco, Texas.

Alexander's testimony came at the start of a preliminary hearing that will determine whether there is enough evidence to try Nichols on 160 counts of first-degree murder.

Nichols, 48, was previously convicted on federal conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter charges for the deaths of eight law enforcement officers in the bombing, which killed 168 people. The state charges involve victims who were not part of Nichols' federal trial.

A second witness, Sheryl Pankratz, who works at the court clerk's office in Marion, Kan., testified that in March 1994 a man who identified himself as Terry Nichols turned in a document at the office that renounced his U.S. citizenship.

Prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty and say a state conviction is needed to eliminate the possibility that he could ever successfully appeal his federal case and gain freedom. They met twice this year with Nichols' attorney in attempts to settle the case, but no settlement was reached.

Martha Ridley said she has waited eight years for Nichols to be prosecuted for the death of her daughter, Kathy Ridley.

"These people deserve justice," Ridley said. "He wasn't given the death penalty and these people are just as dead today as they were April 19. And they will never come back."

Prosecutors allege that Nichols and co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh worked together to prepare a 4,000-pound fuel-and-fertilizer bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Nichols was at home in Herington, Kan., the day the bomb exploded. But prosecutors accused him of helping McVeigh deliver a getaway car to Oklahoma City and of working with McVeigh to pack the bomb inside a Ryder truck on the day before.

Legal disputes, including complaints by Nichols' court-appointed defense attorneys that his legal bills are not being paid promptly, have postponed seven other preliminary hearing dates. Nichols' defense attorneys have been paid about $2.5 million so far.

The hearing could be complicated by revelations, first reported by The Associated Press, that the Justice Department received a letter before McVeigh's execution suggesting a key prosecution witness against McVeigh had given false testimony.

The letter cites testimony in a civil case from Steven Burmeister, now the FBI lab's chief of scientific analysis. The testimony contradicted what he said in the McVeigh case about key evidence regarding chemical residue of material used in making the bomb.

Justice Department officials have said they don't believe making the letter available would have affected the outcome of McVeigh's trial. State prosecutors said they have removed Burmeister from their witness list.

Eleven days before McVeigh's execution, FBI lab employees faxed and sent by courier an urgent letter to Attorney General John D. Ashcroft alleging that an FBI prosecution witness at McVeigh's 1997 trial might have given "false" testimony about forensic evidence.

At the time the June 1, 2001, letter was sent to Ashcroft, Justice and the FBI were reeling from the embarrassing discovery that more than 4,400 pages of FBI documents on the case had never been turned over to the defense during the trial -- a discovery that forced Ashcroft to stay the execution a month.

"It was not an accident that the letter didn't surface before the execution," said Stephen Jones, McVeigh's lawyer at trial. "That information could have undermined the heart of the government case."

FBI scientist revised testimony in bomb case

By John Solomon, Associated Press, 5/5/2003

ASHINGTON -- A prominent FBI science witness told federal investigators that his lab colleagues had performed shoddy work in the Timothy McVeigh case, and then abruptly retracted several statements before appearing as a prosecution witness at trial, a transcript shows.

FBI explosives specialist Steven Burmeister, who later rose to become the FBI lab's chief of scientific analysis, initiated a meeting Dec. 19, 1996, with the Justice Department inspector general, to whom he had made the original allegations 18 months earlier.

''There are several statements in the interview I would like to clarify or correct,'' Burmeister told the investigators in a taped interview.

After receiving the Miranda warning about his constitutional rights, Burmeister proceeded, according to 68 pages of the transcript, to correct or retract earlier statements he made that colleagues who worked on the bombing evidence did not use proper techniques or were unqualified to do some tests they performed.

''I'm not sure why I would have said that,'' Burmeister said at one point, as he retracted an earlier statement that a knife with possible explosive residue should not have been swabbed at the lab.

FBI officials defended Burmeister, saying he asked to make the changes after seeing a summary of his first interview.

The officials insisted that he was under no pressure to change any testimony to help the McVeigh prosecution. ''I can state categorically that Steve Burmeister has never felt pressure to change any testimony, any report from lab officials, the FBI, prosecutors, or anyone else,'' said Dwight Adams, FBI lab director.

''He made the effort because he is such a meticulous, honest person that he wanted the IG report to be correct,'' Adams said.

But legal specialists said the transcript might pose a long-term problem for the FBI. Since the McVeigh trial in 1997, Burmeister has appeared as a witness in several other prominent cases.

The legal specialists said the transcript could be exculpatory evidence prosecutors are obligated to turn over to defense lawyers in any cases in which Burmeister testified about the lab techniques involved in his interviews, because the transcript speaks to his credibility and expertise.

FBI officials said they did not know whether Burmeister's interviews have been turned over in any case, including those of McVeigh and Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols.

''Contradictory sworn statements are the kind of information a jury could take into consideration in evaluating his credibility, especially when those statements come to bear on the very expertise he is supposed to have,'' said Stephen Gillers, a New York University law professor.

The inspector general also received information from FBI whistle-blower Frederic Whitehurst, who was Burmeister's mentor, that Burmeister had complained in the months before he retracted his testimony that he was being pressured by prosecutors and lab employees to change his testimony or scientific conclusions.

''Steve definitely spoke of the pressure to me,'' Whitehurst wrote in a letter in which he alleged that prosecutors had twice tried to get Burmeister to testify a certain way in the Oklahoma case.

During his December interview, Burmeister explained that he came forward to revise his testimony because he was ''in preparation for an ongoing trial with the Oklahoma City bombing matter'' and had reviewed his earlier allegations.

This story ran on page A4 of the Boston Globe on 5/5/2003.

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