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Detailed executive plans made for Oklahoma bomber
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US prison officials have drawn up meticulous plans for executing Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh detailing everything from the time of his last meal, the clothes he will wear and plans to counter a possible assault on the jail by sympathizers or angry victims.
A 54-page protocol document, prepared by the US Bureau of Prisons, sets out minute-by-minute instructions for staff at the Terre Haute, Ind federal prison where McVeigh will be put to death by lethal injection on May 16 for the April 1995 bombing of an Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people. The exact timing of the execution has yet to be set.
According to the document, prison officials want to ensure that the man convicted of the worst act of terrorism on US soil meets his end ``in an efficient and humane manner'' and in a way ``that minimizes the negative impact on the safety, security and operational integrity'' of the prison.
Hundreds of journalists, protesters and anti-government activists are expected to gather outside the prison for the execution. McVeigh enraged victims last week when he admitted in a new book that he pulled off the bombing and viewed the 19 children killed in the attack as ``collateral damage''.
Contingency plans include the creation of a command centre at the prison, special law enforcement teams, and joint training exercises to beef up security. Phone lines and communication systems will be tested in the event of any last-minute appeals or interventions, although this is considered unlikely since McVeigh last year requested that all appeals be dropped.
McVeigh, 32, has said he carried out the bombing in revenge for the FBI 's bloody showdown with the Branch Davidian sect in Waco, Texas, two years to the day before the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City blast.
McVeigh will be dressed in khaki pants, shirt and slip-on shoes 30 minutes before the execution and escorted -- or shackled and carried if he resists -- from a holding cell to the execution room.
Some 30 witnesses -- six of them chosen by McVeigh, some media representatives and a number of victims -- will watch through the windows of an adjoining room as McVeigh, strapped onto a gurney, is asked whether he wishes to make a last statement. Officials have already advised him that any statement should be kept ``reasonably brief''.
He will then be injected with a lethal mixture of sodium pentothal, pavulon and potassium chloride. Death is expected to be swift.
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