Timothy McVeigh & …

Although Timothy McVeigh doesn’t need any closer presentation, let’s refresh our memory. He is the man who was convicted for perpetrating the worst act of peacetime (pre-Sept 11, 2001) violence on American soil. He was eventually executed by the lethal injection in the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana on June 12, 2001.

Tim McVeigh and his two known accomplices were filled with inordinate rage against the federal government of the USA, particularly in the aftermath of the calamitous 1993 seize of a right-wing religious compound outside Waco, Texas, in which 76 residents burned to death, after the FBI raided the site with armoured vehicles firing volleys of teargas.

They then blew up a federal building in the state of Oklahoma, on April 19, 1995, killing 168 as a revenge for, as they perceived it: The crimes of the federal government against fellow American nationals.

Tim McVeigh was certainly a very unusual/abnormal guy by any standard. He welcomed his execution, calling it “state-assisted suicide” and said to believe that he was the “victor” in what he saw as a war against the US federal government.

Lou Michel, a reporter with The Buffalo News who interviewed McVeigh and who was also a execution witness said, “he feels he is the victor. He has made his point, and he’s now going on … to the next step”.

A book by his trial lawyer Stephen Jones claims that Timothy McVeigh deliberately encouraged newspapers to highlight his guilt from the earliest days of his case to deflect attention from other possible suspects. Mr Jones quotes McVeigh as telling him, “if no one else is arrested or convicted, then the revolution can continue.”

In short, McVeigh confessed his crime quite immediately after his arrest, never implicated his companions, if there were any, didn’t appeal against his conviction by which he could easily prolong the process for several years and refused to apologize.

Defiantly, and in a sense chillingly graceful manner, he embraced the consequences of his actions. He stood for his beliefs and deeds. Wrong or right – another story.

Said that, resemblance, dissimilarities, contrast and/or parallels with any other contemporary person would be purely accidental.