McVeigh Trial Begins Amid Tight Security

DENVER —  The trial of Timothy J. McVeigh opened Monday amid a knot of tight police security, with attorneys beginning the arduous process of questioning potential jurors for a trial expected to last four months and feature 500 witnesses testifying about the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

McVeigh, the former Army sergeant accused of delivering the bomb to the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, sat restlessly in his courtroom chair, clearly relieved to have his trial underway. He fidgeted, scribbled notes to his attorneys and listened intently, sometimes smiling.

The 1995 bombing, which killed 168 people and injured more than 500, was the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history.

Outside the Denver courthouse Monday were hundreds of federal law enforcement officers and local police, some perched with firearms and binoculars atop nearby buildings.

The defendant’s father, William McVeigh, visited his son for the first time since he was arrested in the April 19, 1995, blast. They met on Easter Sunday at a jail, and then again in the courtroom. The elder McVeigh said of his son: “He seems fine. He seems OK.”

The crush of people in front of the courthouse included bombing victims and relatives of those killed and hurt in the blast.

“It’s taken two years for me to emotionally be able to be in the courtroom,” said Marsha Kight, whose 23-year-old daughter was killed while working in a federal credit union office. “It’s still emotional for me, but now I know I have to be in there.”

The trial for Terry L. Nichols, McVeigh’s former Army buddy and alleged accomplice in the bombing, will be held after this trial is over.

McVeigh is seen by prosecutors as the primary mover behind the Oklahoma City blast. They have promised to show that McVeigh acted on his deep hatred for the federal government.

But defense attorneys have offered a variety of other scenarios, suggesting that neo-Nazis or Middle Eastern terrorists might be the true bombers, and that McVeigh stands wrongly accused.

As U.S. District Judge Richard P. Matsch opened the trial, he noted that the case is making history with a closed-circuit TV transmission of the proceedings to a theater in Oklahoma City.

“But this is not theater; this is a trial,” he said.

The first potential juror to be quizzed Monday morning was a middle-aged white male from the Denver area who has worked as a coal mining engineer and an investment advisor.

He told the court that he was capable of giving McVeigh the death penalty--a position that obviously pleased prosecutors.

But then the man began talking about how he was living in Tulsa at the time of the bombing, had later visited the Murrah site and had cried and prayed for those who were killed.

“I was quite moved and stirred by what I saw,” he said.

He also said his parents had urged him to find someone guilty in the bombing, if he is selected as a juror. “They said that Mr. McVeigh really does deserve to pay for this,” he said. “Whether he did it or not, somebody needs to pay for all those lives lost in Oklahoma City.”

Those comments could lead to his dismissal by defense attorneys.

Another potential juror, an elderly white woman, said she also cried and prayed for the dead and injured, but added that she also is concerned about McVeigh.

“If he’s found guilty, I feel like he’s wasted his life,” she said. “I feel sorry for him, as one human being to another.”

The jury questioning is to continue today.