-Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,504079,00.html Death row diaries reveal McVeigh's goal of martyrdom Inmates write about 'troubled' bomber Julian Borger in Washington Saturday June 9, 2001 The Guardian As Timothy McVeigh approaches his day of execution this Monday, he has been dieting so that he will look like a "concentration camp victim" in postmortem photographs, according to jail diaries kept by his fellow inmates on death row in Indiana. McVeigh's execution will be broadcast on closed-circuit television to about 300 survivors and relatives of victims in Oklahoma City. One fellow inmate and diarist, Paul Hammer, referred to the media event as "Bloodstock". The event may also be videotaped after a federal judge in Pittsburgh granted a request to this effect yesterday by lawyers in an unrelated death penalty case who want to use the filmed record to support their argument that state execution contravenes the constitution because it is cruel and unusal punishment. The Pittsburgh case involves Joseph Minerd, charged with rigging the pipe bomb that killed his former girlfriend and her daughter. Minerd was charged under the federal arson and bombing law that was also used to prosecute defendants including McVeigh in the Oklahoma City bombing. A McVeigh lawyer said his client had no objection to a video, but justice department officials are appealing against the Pittsburgh ruling, citing a federal regulation that prohibits photographic, visual or audio recording of executions. Light is thrown on the Oklahoma City bomber's state of mind and conditions in the federal death row buildings in the small Indiana town of Terre Haute by diary entries posted on a website that is called Death Row Speaks (www.deathrowspeaks.net). Jeff Paul, 24, who is facing the death penalty for robbing and shooting dead an 82-year-old man on a mountain path in Arkansas, observed in an entry dated May 25 that the security precautions around McVeigh had been stepped up, with waste paper from his cell being shredded. "Apparently, a staff member was caught either smuggling things out of prison with his [McVeigh's] name on it or trying to sell some things of his on the internet. Tim [McVeigh] is not sure which but is interested in finding out," Paul wrote. "They put him in a cell with constant video surveillance a while back and instituted a policy that anytime he comes out of his cell he'll have at least three officers present, on top of the handcuffs and chains." Officials in charge at Terre Haute failed to return calls about the security precautions, but officials at the bureau of prisons said that they believed the Death Row Speaks diaries to be genuine. The diaries consist mainly of the inmates' personal reflections on their past and their jail conditions, but two of them, Paul and David Hammer, make occasional observations about their notorious prison mate. Paul reported that "for a long time he [McVeigh] was on a vegetable diet that comes in a special tray. I asked him why and he said it was because he wanted to look like a concentration camp victim for the postmortem photos." On May 30 he noted that McVeigh had started taking normal meals again, and Paul speculated this was because he believed his stay of execution, granted because of the belated discovery of evidence by the FBI, would last longer than the initial month, and that "he knows he's going to be around to lose [weight]" later. But on Thursday, a federal appeal court upheld a district judge's decision to reject McVeigh's request for an extended stay of execution, on the grounds that there was no doubt about his guilt. McVeigh, who has admitted bombing the Alfred P Murrah federal building on April 19 1995 - killing 168 people and injuring 500 - subsequently dropped his attempt to have the execution postponed. The web diaries do not record these most recent events, as they have to be posted by conventional mail to the website organisers, Julie and Simon Whyte in Dorset, England. Ms Whyte said yesterday that the three-month-old website was "an opportunity for inmates to show that they are human beings, with feeling and emotions like the rest of us. It gives an insight into their lives and, by understanding what the inmates have been through, maybe we can start trying to concentrate on the cause of violent behaviour rather than continuously having to execute people and achieving nothing." In another entry, Paul Hammer also wrote: "My friend Tim is a troubled and misguided man. We disagree on most issues, but he is also a kind loving and caring person with a quick smile, keen wit and a sense of humour. I will miss him and I continue to pray for his soul." ======================================================= Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT FROM THE DESK OF: *Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends ======================================================= <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. 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