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Eric rudolph takes blame for terrorisms { August 22 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/national/22cnd-rudolph.html?hp"But Rudolph almost never expressed his views about abortion. Those views came only after he put thousands of innocent people at risk at the Olympics, as he desperately tried to somehow justify his actions."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/22/national/22cnd-rudolph.html?hp
August 22, 2005
A Subdued Rudolph Is Sentenced for Bombings
By JENNIFER BAYOT
Victims of Eric R. Rudolph, the bomber who attacked the 1996 Olympics and two abortion clinics, said he seemed different at his sentencing today.
In contrast to the defiant terrorist who had declared himself "bloodied but emphatically unbowed," even as he agreed to plead guilty, Mr. Rudolph - who was sentenced to life in prison, as expected - was subdued and even apologetic.
"Listening to the many victims of the Centennial Park bombing, I cannot begin to truly understand the pain that I have inflicted upon these innocent people," Mr. Rudolph read from a prepared statement.
Robert Stadler, who was with his twin infants in the same building as the Atlanta clinic when Mr. Rudolph bombed it in 1997, said he was surprised by what he saw at today's sentencing: "I saw a scared Eric Rudolph."
Still, Mr. Rudolph said that he believed in the justice of his cause and that his intent had been "to confound, anger and embarrass the Washington government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand."
Mr. Rudolph made no mention of the other three bombings for which he has taken responsibility. Those other explosions occurred at an abortion clinic and a gay nightclub in Atlanta in 1997 and at another clinic in Birmingham, Ala., in 1998. Altogether, the bombings killed two people and injured 150.
Mr. Rudolph, dressed in a suit, listened attentively in court as more than a dozen of his victims and their relatives denounced his religious extremism and declared that his crimes had done far more to weaken his antiabortion and antigay views than to advance them.
John Hawthorne, whose wife, Alice, had died in the attack on Olympics, addressed Mr. Rudolph during the sentencing to describe him as Napoleonic - "little person, big bomb."
"You're still a small man," he said. "You show defiance and arrogance, but only to hide your fear of the dismal future in store for you." Mr. Hawthorne played a video tribute to his wife and noted that today would have been their 18th wedding anniversary.
Fallon Stubbs, Alice Hawthorne's 23-year-old daughter, offered Mr. Randolph forgiveness. "Because of you, I have become a tolerant person," said Ms. Stubbs, who was also injured in the bombing. "Not for you, but for me, I forgive you, I look at you, I love you.
"And if I cry," she added, "it's not for me. It's not for my mother. It's not for my father. It's for you."
At that point, Mr. Rudolph appeared to break eye contact, according to The Associated Press.
Phyllis B. Sumner, an assistant United States attorney, suggested that his religious convictions were a pretense. "Rudolph was filled with hatred for many: hatred for law enforcement, hatred for the United States government, hatred for blacks and hatred for Jews," she said. "But Rudolph almost never expressed his views about abortion. Those views came only after he put thousands of innocent people at risk at the Olympics, as he desperately tried to somehow justify his actions."
Though it provided a forum for those hurt by his attacks, the sentencing was otherwise a formality. Mr. Rudolph, 38, had already agreed to life imprisonment in April when he decided to plead guilty to the Olympics attack and the three other bombings.
For five years, Mr. Rudolph was a notorious fugitive, evading police by living in the Appalachian wilderness. He was finally caught while rummaging for food behind a grocery store.Under the terms of his plea bargain, Mr. Rudolph escaped execution. He agreed to four life sentences, with no possibility of parole. He also divulged the location of 250 pounds of dynamite he had hidden in the North Carolina woods and mountains.
"Eric Rudolph is guilty today," David E. Nahmias, the United States attorney for the Northern District of Georgia in Atlanta, said at a news conference announcing the plea bargain in April. "There will be no further delays in obtaining justice for the public and the many victims of his terrorist activity."
He added: "The families of the victims for whom we could seek the death penalty accepted this agreement."
But Mr. Rudolph was unrepentant in his first public statement after striking the deal, instead exulting that the agreement "deprived the government of its goal of sentencing me to death." Asked during a hearing if he had detonated a bomb that killed an off-duty police officer and maimed a nurse in Birmingham, Mr. Rudolph replied, "I certainly did, Your Honor."
He was similarly self-assured when he was sentenced last month for that bombing. "As I go to a prison cell for a lifetime, I know that 'I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, I have kept the faith,' " he said, quoting from the New Testament.
It was at that sentencing that he first heard directly from victims of his attacks, giving him the past month to think over their expressions of grief and rebuke.
He had watched a videotape of eulogies at the police officer's funeral and heard from his widow, Felecia Sanderson. "He has been responsible for every tear my sons have shed," she told the court.
Emily Lyons, the nurse he maimed and left half-blind, told him he would have faced execution had his victims' families not agreed to the plea deal. "You murdered their loved ones, yet they kept the needle out of your arm," she said.
Shaila Dewan contributed reporting for this article from Atlanta.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
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