Posted on 02/12/2003 11:17:50 PM PST by kattracks
WASHINGTON, Feb 13, 2003 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- The FBI and prosecutors ordered the destruction in 1999 of evidence from a bank robbery they once suspected linked Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to white supremacists who were threatening before McVeigh's bombing to attack the government, documents show.
The evidence included a surveillance videotape of a bank robbery by some of the supremacists that occurred in Ohio five months before the bombing. The FBI lab compared the tape to pictures of McVeigh, but concluded a match was "inconclusive," internal memos show.
The 1999 destruction order, obtained by The Associated Press, was unusual because at the time McVeigh and one of the bank robbers had legal appeals pending.
And the government knew, but had turned aside, an offer from one of the bank robbers, Peter Kevin Langan, to provide information about possible other conspirators in the McVeigh case. Langan and his lawyer claim he still possesses Oklahoma City information the government hasn't heard.
FBI officials said Wednesday they were still trying to determine whether the videotape and other evidence was actually destroyed, but remain confident all those responsible for the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah federal building have been punished.
Sounds a little dialectical. If it ain't broke, invent a reason to fix it anyway and prove yourself indespensible. America is becoming so fractured with 'indespensibles' it can hardly walk.
But..but...but everyone knows it was white supremacists. The lady from CNN said so...sarcasm/.
Sunday Telegraph 20/July/1997 International
By Ivo Dawnay in Washington
GAPING cracks are opening in the US Justice Department's claim that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the exclusive work of the convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh and his alleged co-conspirator, Terry Nichols, who is still awaiting trial.
A month after McVeigh, a 29-year-old former soldier, was unanimously sentenced to die by a Denver jury, most Americans would prefer to forget the horrendous deaths of 168 men, women and children in what was the worst act of domestic terrorism in the country's history.
However, in Oklahoma itself, especially among many of the victims' families, the clamour is growing for further inquiries into a wider conspiracy. Many believe that the authorities are suppressing the truth.
In a case due to open next week in Tulsa, jurors will hear fresh evidence that US security agencies had ample forewarning of an attack on a federal target, possibly Oklahoma City's Murrah building. The testimony will come from Carol Howe, 28, daughter of a wealthy Tulsan, who acted for two-and-a-half years as an undercover informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF). In the McVeigh trial it was disallowed as irrelevant by Judge Richard Matsch.
Now Howe, an avowed white separatist, is facing charges, including conspiracy to make threats and possession of a bomb, that her defenders claim were brought to intimidate her.
Those who believe her claims had expected that the charges might subsequently be dropped in return for her silence. However, Howe's version of events - while still all but unreported in the mainstream media - is now on the public record in appeal documents submitted by McVeigh's lawyer, Stephen Jones.
Her story, backed up by plentiful documentary evidence, is simple. A victim of an assault by three black youths, she drifted towards the white racist movement where she met Denis Mahon, a leader of the so-called White Aryan Resistance group, linked to an Oklahoma commune of extremists called Elohim City.
After allegedly being sexually assaulted by Mahon, she filed an Emergency Protective Order against him, thereby alerting the interest of the ATF. Approached by ATF agent Angela Finley, she agreed to act as an informant. Her numerous reports included warnings that some at the commune planned to bomb a federal building.
According to Mr Jones's appeal submission, Agent Finley's handwritten notes confirm a report from Howe that Mahon had bomb-making expertise. He had told her he had exploded a 500lb ammonium nitrate bomb in Michigan five years earlier.
Howe also reported that Mahon, together with another Elohim resident, the German-born "head of security" Andreas Strassmeir, had taken three trips to "case" Oklahoma City.
Prosecution attorneys have cast doubt on Howe's credibility. They point to her undisputed white separatist sympathies and that she once sought psychiatric help.
Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence that Howe's reports were taken extremely seriously by the ATF. Mr Jones's defence appeal also points out that she was immediately rehired by the ATF in the wake of the Oklahoma bomb and sent back to Elohim City to gather more information. She continued to be on the payroll until December last year.
Charges were brought against her last March after she and her fiance, Jim Viefhaus, were said to have recorded an alleged bomb threat on a telephone "newsline" and to have been in possession of a bomb. Her defence is expected to claim that the taped threat was the work of Viefhaus, which she had opposed, and that the bomb equipment was part of her "cover".
What is most worrying for prosecuting attorneys is that Howe claims little knowledge of Tim McVeigh. Instead she identified from descriptions several other Elohim figures, including Mahon, Strassmeir and a bank robber, Michael Brescia, as likely bombers. But to date, although the FBI is said to have spoken to more than 20,000 individuals in America's most extensive criminal inquiry, Mahon has yet to be interviewed. Strassmeir, another suspect named by Howe, has been only cursorily interviewed in Germany by telephone.
That has prompted further speculation that the murky world of Elohim City was a nest of undercover agents and agents provocateurs, many of whom were working for the authorities - possibly on different inquiries.
A theory shared by believers in a wider conspiracy is that the government is covering up a bungled "sting" operation that may have involved a squabble over jurisdiction between the FBI and the ATF.
At least one civil suit brought by victims' families centres on claims that it was a failure by federal agencies to act swiftly that led to the bombing. Evidence to support that case emerged at pre-trial hearings into the Howe case on June 30. Local reporters claimed "near pandemonium" in the Tulsa courtroom when an FBI agent revealed that a leading figure in Elohim City was an FBI informant.
The revelation, made under cross-examination, was that "the Reverend" Robert Millar, the community's rabble-rousing spiritual leader, had collaborated closely with federal agents.
Meanwhile last week new hearings by a grand jury in Oklahoma City convened to look into the possibility of a wider conspiracy, heard damaging testimony from two eyewitnesses.
They claimed to have seen McVeigh on the morning of the bombing accompanied by as many as three other possible suspects. Their evidence was not heard in the McVeigh trial as they were not called by either the prosecution or the defence.
That Stephen Jones failed to call them is understandable as they would have implicated his client in the crime. That the prosecution failed to do so only reinforces the view that there was an as yet unexplained desire on the part of the US attorneys' office to keep the number of suspects to a minimum.
Copyright Telegraph Group Limited 1997
Don't know if this is the same guy, but back in around 12 years ago or so there was a guy in Cincinnati that was arrested for possessing a semi-auto in Cincinnati (violating the recently passed city wide smei-auto ban). I belive this was the guy.
Anyway, it was really strange at the time as some of us pro RKBA types tried to assist in his defense. Then, out of the blue, the Secret Service showed up and claimed he was somehow involved (as an accessory; assisting a geta-way) in a bank robbery down south (GA; or SC or somewhere) and is extradited. Curious thing, we did some checking, and apparently his father worked for one of the Govt. agencies like the CIA /FBI or Secret Service (don't remember which). All I really remember is that it seemed really curious; almost like this guy was some kind of Fed Gov mole that had simply been sidelined temporarily by some local BS anti-gun ordinance.
Will follow-up with a couple friends today who have better memories then I right now.
Sui
In my opnion, the answer is Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Middle Eastern participation in the Oklahoma City bombing.
U.S. Had Data Hinting of Okla. Bombing
AP News | 11 Feb, 2003
FBI officials said they suspected Millar was initially involved, but he cooperated with the investigation and was eventually ruled out as a suspect.
Millar died in 2001. His former attorney, Kirk Lyons, said he doubts his client had anything to do with McVeigh's attack and that Millar's fiery rhetoric was aimed more at uniting members at his compound than inciting violence. "He was trying to keep his followers together," Lyons said.
More Pieces to the OKC Puzzle
In February of this year, Strassmeir issued a statement from Berlin through his attorney Kirk Lyons, executive director of CAUSE, a legal foundation in Black Mountain, North Carolina notorious for championing the causes of the Ku Klux Klan and other extremists. In this unsigned "affidavit," Strassmeir states that he met Timothy McVeigh at a large gun show held in Tulsa, Oklahoma in April 1993, shortly after the Waco conflagration.
Phone Trail to Oklahoma City
For instance, Kirk Lyons, radical attorney for neo-Nazi causes (and for Andreas Strassmeir), has admitted that his office received a lengthy call from Timothy McVeigh the day before the bombing. Significantly, that telephone call does not show up in the phone records this magazine has obtained.
I am starting to see a pattern develop here, and the pattern is named Kirk Lyons.
I seem to recall Gary Hunt stated he was in Florida and that could be confirmed because he was in a conversation with his attorney.
Does anyone recall the name of the attorney or the thread?
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