McVeigh, Timothy (1968–2001)

Former US Army soldier who was convicted for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing in Oklahoma, the worst terrorist attack in US history. He was executed in 2001.

McVeigh served in Operation Desert Storm in the Gulf War, and was discharged in 1991. Linked with right-wing paramilitary groups, he and US army comrade Terry Nichols were convicted of perpetrating the bombing of the Alfred P Murrah US government building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, on 19 April 1995. 168 people died in the bombing and more than 500 were injured. A jury in Denver, Colorado, found him guilty of 11 counts of conspiracy and murder in 1997, and he was scheduled to be executed in May 2001. However, in that month, the execution was postponed when it emerged that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had failed to disclose thousands of pages of evidence. However, a US federal judge ruled that McVeigh's execution would go ahead on 11 June, despite a formal request by his lawyers to have his execution delayed. McVeigh served at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he was executed by lethal injection.