LONDON — Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh is still unrepentant 10 days before his scheduled execution, a British newspaper reported Sunday, saying it had received a letter from the death-row prisoner.
McVeigh, in a letter to an Observer journalist, reportedly explained the “triggers” that led him to park a massive bomb in front of an Oklahoma City federal building in 1995. The blast killed 168 people, including 19 children.
The newspaper’s claim that the letter was from McVeigh could not be independently confirmed. The reporter who received the letter — Tracy McVeigh — says she may be a distant relative and has covered the run-up to the May 16 execution.
Timothy McVeigh said in the letter that he grew tired of waiting for justice for the dozens of Davidian cult members who died during a botched federal raid on their headquarters in Waco, Texas, in 1993.
“I reached the decision to go on the offensive — to put a check on government abuse of power, where others had failed in stopping the federal juggernaught run amok,” McVeigh reportedly wrote. “Foremost the bombing was a retaliatory strike, a counter attack.”
The journalist who received the letter reported that McVeigh reminded the families of his victims that he still had no regrets over the bombing.
“Borrowing a page from U.S. foreign policy, I decided to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile by bombing a government building and the government employees within that building who represent that government,” McVeigh was quoted as saying.
McVeigh, 33, is scheduled to die by lethal injection at the federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana. The execution is to be broadcast on closed-circuit television so survivors of the blast and relatives of victims can bare witness.
