| More accomplices in 1995 oklahoma city bombing { February 29 2004 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=75439&Sn=WORLhttp://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Articles.asp?Article=75439&Sn=WORL
Vol XXVI NO. 346 Sunday 29 February 2004 Oklahoma case review ordered WASHINGTON: The question of whether Timothy McVeigh may have had more accomplices in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing is getting a new look after the FBI took the rare step of ordering a formal review of some aspects of the investigation based on stories by The Associated Press.
The FBI on Friday ordered agents to determine why some documents did not properly reach the bureau's Oklahoma City task force during the original investigation before he was executed in 2001, officials said.
The review will also try to determine whether FBI agents in a separate investigation of white supremacist bank robbers may have failed to alert the Oklahoma City investigation of a possible link between the robbers and McVeigh, and allowed some of that evidence to be destroyed.
The AP reported on Wednesday that documents never introduced at McVeigh's trial showed FBI agents destroyed evidence and failed to share other information that raised the possibility the bank robbery gang may have aided McVeigh.
The evidence includes documents showing the Aryan Republican Army bank robbers possessed explosive blasting caps similar to those McVeigh stole and a driver's licence with the name of a central player who was robbed in the Oklahoma City plot. The caps were destroyed.
The April 19, 1995, bombing at the Alfred P Murrah federal building killed more than 160 people and McVeigh was put to death for it in 2001. Co-defendant Terry Nichols, already serving life in a federal prison, will stand trial in Oklahoma next week on state charges that could carry the death penalty.
Nichols' attorneys asked on Thursday for the trial to be delayed in light of the AP story, but the judge refused, and court spokeswoman Cheryl Camp said: "We will begin selecting a jury at 9am on Monday (tomorrow) morning."
The retired head of the McVeigh investigation and McVeigh's former lawyer applauded Friday's development.
"It was the right thing to do. The FBI has to put the integrity back in the "I" of the FBI," retired agent Dan Defenbaugh said.
Peter Langan, a member of the Aryan robbery gang said he plans to testify at Nichols' trial that federal prosecutors several years ago offered and then withdrew a plea deal for information he had about the Oklahoma City bombing.
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