Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, May 9, 1995 TAG: 9505090128
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL PAGE: A-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: From The Washington Post and The New York Times
DATELINE: WASHINGTON LENGTH: Medium
Nichols is being held in Kansas as a material witness in the case, but so far has been accused only of conspiring with McVeigh and Nichols' older brother, James, to build explosives at their farm in Michigan over the last several years.
``There's an awful lot of stuff pointing to his (Terry Nichols') being involved,'' one law enforcement official said Monday. Evidence includes a receipt for a ton of ammonium nitrate that was found at Terry Nichols' Herington, Kan., home with one of McVeigh's fingerprints on it.
FBI lab experts have been comparing bits of blue plastic recovered from the bodies of some of the victims with blue plastic drums found at Nichols' home. A second law enforcement official said Monday that the results were likely to be that the fragments are ``consistent'' with the plastic drums, but nothing more conclusive.
In other developments Monday:
President Clinton urged quick passage of a bill to give federal agents sweeping new eavesdropping powers for combating terrorism. The bill proposes increases in the investigative powers of the government, but such provisions have been criticized from both the right and the left as a threat to civil liberties and an undue expansion of federal power.
A new lawyer was appointed for McVeigh Stephen Jones, 54, of Enid, Okla., who has handled a number of prominent cases in Oklahoma, said Monday that "I did not seek or request the appointment, or even encourage it in any way. I have been drafted. However, I will do my duty."
Hundreds of family members and friends packed two churches in Oklahoma City for a final tribute to Virginia Thompson and Christy Rosas, both employees of the bomb-shattered credit union that plunged from the third floor of the federal building. Their bodies were never found.
by CNB