The US government Timothy McVeigh so despised executed him by chemical injection yesterday, taking his life in exchange for the 168 lives lost when he blew up the Oklahoma City federal building six years ago. He died silently, with his eyes open.
Instead of making an oral statement, McVeigh, 33, issued a copy of the 1875 poem Invictus, which concludes with the lines: "I am the master of my fate; I am the captain of my soul."
McVeigh was pronounced dead at 8:14am by Warden Harley Lappin, becoming the first federal prisoner executed in 38 years.
PHOTO: REUTERS
In Oklahoma City, about 300 survivors and victims' relatives gathered to watch a closed-circuit TV broadcast of the execution, sent from Terre Haute in a feed encrypted to guard against interception. Others embraced each other at the memorial marking the bombing site.
The lethal injection was administered to McVeigh's right leg. He made eye contact with his four witnesses, then with the 10 media witnesses, then squinted toward the tinted window shielding the 10 victims' witnesses from his view.
McVeigh looked pale as he awaited death. His hair was cropped short. A white sheet was pulled up to his chest as he lay on the gurney. When the first drug was administered, he let out a couple of deep breaths, then a fluttery breath. His head moved back, his gaze fixed on the ceiling, and his eyes were glassy.
US President George W. Bush was quoted yesterday as saying the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh brought justice to the victims of the devastating 1995 blast.
"The victims of the Oklahoma city bombing have been given not vengeance but justice," Bush said, hours before leaving on a trip to Europe where he is likely to face protests by opponents of the death penalty.
Death penalty supporters held signs saying "Remember the Victims" and "Thou shalt not kill and live" as they gathered yesterday outside the federal prison for the execution. Some of their signs bore the simple footnote "168."
On the other side of orange fencing, about 400m away, a larger contingent of 120 death penalty opponents sat on straw bales, some holding flickering candles in milk carton holders.
No members of McVeigh's family traveled to Terre Haute, at his request.
Defiant to the end, McVeigh had told those close to him in his final days that he still considered himself the victor in his one-man war against a government he labeled a bully.
Prison officials said the decorated Gulf War veteran spent Sunday writing letters, sleeping, and watching television.
McVeigh was served his final requested meal at 1pm Sunday, eating two pints of mint-chocolate chip ice cream.
Less than 24 hours before his death, McVeigh's mood had been upbeat, his attorneys said.
McVeigh was transferred from his cell to an isolation cell near the death chamber at 5:10am on Sunday. "He was able to look up in the sky and see the moon for the first time in a number of years," one of his attorneys said.
McVeigh was born in Pendleton, New York, near Buffalo, in 1968 and raised Roman Catholic in a middle-class environment.
As he grew up, he developed a distrust of the government, yet he joined the US Army and went on to serve in the Gulf War. He returned more disillusioned with the US, viewing its treatment of the Iraqi people as that of a schoolyard bully.
Drifting across the country and taking on an increasingly survivalist mentality, he stewed over what he saw as government encroachment on the right to bear arms. The federal raids at the Branch Davidian compound at Waco and the cabin of white separatist Randy Weaver at Ruby Ridge brought his hatred to a head.
He decided it was time for actions, not words.
McVeigh set his sights on the Oklahoma City federal building. He packed a rented truck with explosives, lit the fuses, parked it outside the federal building and walked away without looking back.
McVeigh was pronounced dead at 8:14am.
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