THE prosecution accused Oklahoma City bombing defendant Timothy McVeigh today of being a right-wing extremist who thought the deadly blast would trigger a second American Revolution.
But McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, sought to coun-ter the Government's claim by saying he would prove it had accused the wrong man of blowing up the Alfred P Murrah federal building and killing 168 people on April 19, 1995.
In an opening statement laying out the case against the Gulf War veteran, prosecutor Joseph Hartzler declared: ''Mc-Veigh liked to consider himself a patriot, someone who could start the second American Revolution.
''Our forefathers did not fight innocent women and children,'' he said. ''They didn't plant bombs and run away wearing earplugs.''
McVeigh, who has pleaded innocent and who could face the death penalty if convicted, took copious notes during the opening statements, occasionally looking grim-faced and tense.
Jones told jurors the evidence will show that ''my client is innocent of the crime''. He described the bombing as ''the largest domestic terrorist act in the history of this country''.
But he also quickly added: ''Did they get the right man?''
''Millions of innocent people fear and distrust the Government,'' Jones said.
He added that a witness who saw a man get out of the rented Ryder truck used in the bombing described him as short, stocky, and of olive complexion, ''a description that does not match my client''. McVeigh is tall and fair-skinned.
Hartzler said there was overwelming evidence to show McVeigh was the bomber. He called him a right-wing radical whose hatred for the Government drove him to bomb the Murrah building so that blood would ''flow in the streets of America.''
Hartzler portrayed McVeigh as a twisted patriot out to avenge the 1993 government assault on the compound of the Branch Davidian religious cult in Waco, Texas, which ended in the deaths of 80 people.
''We're prosecuting him because his hatred boiled into violence. The only reason they died is that they were in a building owned by the federal Government that Tim Mc-Veigh hated so much. He chose to take their innocent lives to serve his twisted purpose,'' Hartzler said.
Hartzler, who suffers from multiple sclerosis, delivered his statement from a wheel-chair, his arms propped on a lectern.
He said the 29-year-old decorated Gulf War veteran rented and drove a Ryder truck loaded with a massive oil and fertiliser bomb to avenge the Waco deaths exactly two years earlier. ''The truck was there to impose the will of Timothy McVeigh on the rest of America,'' Hartzler told the jurors.
He added that prosecutors will present telephone records that trace McVeigh's activities from the time he allegedly sought to buy bomb-making materials until the time he rented the truck in Junction City, Kansas, two days before the bombing.
Relatives of victims of the bombing sat quietly in the courtroom, focusing their gaze on Hartzler as he described the explosion for the jury and said: ''The man that committed this act is sitting behind me.''
Security was heavy around the federal complex that houses the courthouse in downtown Denver. Mounted police pa-trolled the area in a heavy snowstorm. Spectators were lined up three-and-a-half hours before the start of the trial to get one of the coveted 100 seats in the courtroom.
In Oklahoma City, about 125 bomb survivors and relatives of those killed attended a special telecast of the trial's opening arguments.-Reuter
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