Page 290 - Encyclopedia Of Terrorism

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270———Oklahoma City Bombing

conspiracy included many more individuals, not just Trade Center bombing were convicted while Ramzi
McVeigh and Nichols. Stephen Jones, McVeigh’s chief Yousef escaped.
defense counsel, made an early assertion that the two The defense also made significant links between
men, if guilty, did not have the resources to carry off the McVeigh and neo-Nazi elements in the United States,
bombing on their own. The defense suggested possible most of whom were connected to Elohim City, a white
links with Islamic militants based in the Philippines, supremacist compound near the Oklahoma-Arkansas
neo-Nazis, Iraq, and Elohim City, the nearby Christian border. In the early 1980s, members of the Covenant,
Identity compound. Jones also claimed that the govern- the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA), including
ment, through its various agencies, was suppressing a man named Richard Wayne Snell, plotted to blow
evidence that proved it knew of the planned attack up the Murrah building in retaliation for the death
beforehand and could have prevented it. These claims, of Gordon Kahl. (Kahl was a member of the white
which were suppressed in court but made known supremacist group Posse Comitatus who was killed
through public records and in Jones’s book, Others by federal agents.) This plot, however, was never
Unknown (1998), have been the basis for the persistent implemented. Snell was later sentenced to death and
conspiracy theories surrounding the Oklahoma City executed for two separate, unrelated murders. His exe-
bombing. cution fell on April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma
The most alarming connections alleged by the City bombing, as well as the second anniversary of the
defense’s investigation, especially in light of the raid on Waco, Patriot’s Day, and the anniversary of the
September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United Battle of Lexington and Concord, where citizen militia
States involved Nichols’s repeated trips to the groups attacked the English government in 1775.
Philippines. Nichols first traveled to the Philippines The defense also made much of McVeigh’s phone
in 1990 to meet his mail-order bride, Marife Torres. call to Andreas Carl Strassmeir, a German neo-Nazi
Nichols returned several times, ostensibly research- living in Elohim City. Although McVeigh main-
ing “business opportunities.” Before his final trip, in tained, after his conviction, that he had met
November 1994, Nichols gave his former wife, Lana Strassmeir at a gun show and was calling to inquire
Padilla, a package to be opened in the event of his about places to hide after the bombing, the defense
death. Padilla opened the package soon after Nichols claimed that the connections were much deeper.
departed, finding therein a significant amount of cash, Strassmeir had roomed with a man named Michael
stolen valuables, wigs, a life insurance policy, and a Brescia, a member of the Aryan Republican Army,
letter from Nichols to McVeigh. That letter urged and was strongly suspected by the authorities of
McVeigh, “Go for it!” being John Doe No. 2. Strassmeir was also allegedly
connected to Dennis Mahon, a Klansman who ran
paramilitary training at Elohim City. Mahon was fer-
TERRORIST CONNECTION?
vently antigovernment, had allegedly received
Further investigation into Nichols’s Philippine trips money from the Iraqi government for several years
revealed a meeting, in the early 1990s, between following the Gulf War, and was identified by Inter-
an American, known only as “the Farmer,” and sev- pol as an international terrorist.
eral now-imprisoned terrorists—including Ramzi Elohim City also produced a possible defense
Ahmed Yousef, Wali Khan Amin Shah, and Abdul witness named Carol Howe, a paid informant for the
Hakim Murad—in which bomb making and other Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) who
terrorist activities were discussed. An incarcerated knew both Mahon and Strassmeir. Howe provided the
informant and former member of the terrorist group ATF information suggesting that both men had con-
Abu Sayyaf identified “the Farmer” as Terry templated and/or threatened direct action against the
Nichols. Jones’s investigation also placed Osama bin government, including blowing up federal buildings
Laden in the Philippines in the early 1990s—Nichols in Oklahoma City and Tulsa. The prosecution, led
was in the Philippines at that time. One of Jones’s by Beth Wilkinson, repeatedly asserted that neither
hypotheses was that McVeigh and Nichols took the Strassmeir nor Mahon was considered to be a suspect.
fall for a larger conspiracy, much as the Arab men Jones hoped to reveal FBI and/or government negli-
who rented the Ryder truck used in the 1993 World gence for not pursuing these leads.