As early as 8 April, one was seen parked outside the Lady Godiva strip club in Tulsa, at the same time as three men, later identified as McVeigh, Strassmeir and Brescia, were inside. A showgirl, captured on a dressing-room security video, told her fellow strippers that one of the three had boasted to her: "On 19 April 1995, you'll remember me for the rest of your life."Another yellow truck, along with a Chevy pickup, turned up on 10 April at Geary Lake in Kansas, not far from Nichols's house. The truck was seen again repeatedly over the next week, both at the lake, where McVeigh claimed he mixed the bomb with Nichols, and at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, where McVeigh checked in on the 14th.Were the witnesses imagining things, or was there a deliberate strategy to try to confuse everyone? Mark Hamm argues vigorously for the latter, pointing to the ARA's track record of switch cars, disguises and very careful staking of their territory before every crime.If he is right, then who exactly was in Oklahoma City on 19 April? That is a tough question, and no serious researcher claims to have anything close to a definitive answer. Michael Brescia, with his strong resemblance to John Doe 2, is a leading candidate. So too is Pete Langan, whose likeness was captured with remarkable accuracy in an artist's sketch of a man seen by a loading bay worker in downtown Oklahoma City who signalled in vain to the Ryder truck to pull into his slot as it approached.As for the others, one can only guess. Hamm describes the left leg recovered without a body as "The Phantom", a member of the bombing team whose identity has never even been hinted at "I'm not saying I have all the answers I don't have any smoking gun As a criminologist I look for patterns and develop theories. I don't necessarily have hard evidence that can stand up in court."That probably also summarises the way government investigators feel about their flawed efforts.
For all the bruising disappointments and public distortions of the past six years, the FBI can at least console itself that most, if not all, of the suspected conspirators are out of harm's way for the moment Guthrie is dead, and Langan is in prison for life. But Brescia got only six years, and Thomas and McCarthy who will be under government supervision as protected witnesses when they are released were given eight and five respectively Stedeford got 20 years, but could well be out sooner. And that's not to mention those suspects who have escaped the judicial heat altogether: Dennis Mahon, who still lives in Tulsa, and Andreas Strassmeir, who returned to Germany nine months after the bombing.It remains to be seen how the public reacts once these findings receive a wide airing. Hamm's book now heavily rewritten will be published in the autumn. Will Americans accept his conclusions and, if so, will they find the justice system at fault? The man best placed to fill in the gaps and provide some concrete answers is, of course, McVeigh himself. He has given little away in his correspondence and in media interviews, beyond what he told the two Buffalo journalists for their book. In a few days, assuming that here is no dramatic 11th-hour reversal, he will be strapped into a mounted stretcher at the US penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, and become the first federal prisoner to be put to death in almost 40 years.Nobody doubts his guilt, which he now freely confesses Everyone agrees that he is utterly unrepentant.
John Ashcroft, President Bush's ultra-conservative attorney general, would have us believe that his death, which is to be broadcast on closed-circuit television to the victims and their relatives in Oklahoma City, will enable the country to achieve "closure". Shouldn't we worry, though, that the networks of guerrilla activism that gave rise to the bombing may be very far from closed? Aren't there a few things the world's most notorious mass murderer should tell us before he is allowed to depart this life and descend into silence for ever?. A Romanian worker was killed and two were wounded when a powerful roadside bomb exploded on Thursday morning near the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the army said. A Romanian worker was killed and two were wounded when a powerful roadside bomb exploded on Thursday morning near the border fence between Israel and the Gaza Strip, the army said.The explosion took place south of the Kissufim crossing. In an apparent response, army bulldozers razed Palestinian farmland near the Kissufim crossing, the fifth incursion into Palestinian–controlled territory in two days. One of the injured was in serious condition.This comes as tension between the two sides is again mounting, following the stoning to death of two 14-year-old Jewish settler boys on Tuesday.