WASHINGTON, Aug. 28, 2003
FBI Scientist Probed On OKC Blast
Panned Case's Handling, Then Recanted; McVeigh Lawyers Never Told
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The internal FBI probe is only the latest indication that the defense team was deprived of potentially important evidence. (AP (file))
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Timothy McVeigh was executed on June 10, 2001 for the attack, in which 168 perished. (AP)
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Terry Nichols, a convicted conspirator in the attack. (AP)
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The Associated Press reported last spring that a transcript of a Justice Department interview showed that FBI scientific analysis unit chief Steven Burmeister initially had alleged in 1995 that his lab colleagues performed shoddy work in Timothy McVeigh's case, but then retracted several statements before appearing as a prosecution witness at the trial.
AP also reported that lawyers for some FBI lab employees sent a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2001, just days before McVeigh was executed for the April 1995 bombing, alleging Burmeister may have been pressured to give false testimony in the case.
No action was taken and the allegation was never divulged to McVeigh's lawyers. It surfaced this spring during the trial of McVeigh conspirator Terry Nichols.
The FBI's Office of Professional Responsibility, which investigates allegations against agents, recently opened an internal investigation into Burmeister's conduct in the McVeigh case, including his recantation, according to persons familiar with the investigation.
FBI officials refused to discuss the investigation but when AP first reported the existence of the transcripts of Burmeister's interview by the Justice Department inspector general, FBI lab director Dwight Adams said he considered Burmeister to be one of the bureau's top lab experts.
Adams said Burmeister was not pressured to change his testimony about problems at the FBI lab in the McVeigh case and rather did so because he learned some of his earlier allegations to the inspector general were inaccurate or imprecise.
"He made the effort because he is such a meticulous, honest person that he wanted the IG report to be correct," Adams said. "He truly is one of our best."
The Burmeister investigation is not the first hint that McVeigh's defense team was deprived of potentially important information on the case.
McVeigh was put to death on June 10, 2001, in the first federal execution in 39 years, for the bombing that killed 168 people.
He had been scheduled to die about a month earlier, but won a postponement when it emerged that the Justice Department had failed to turn over thousands of documents to his defense team.
McVeigh tried but failed to get an additional stay of his execution; his lawyers argued that some of the 4,500 withheld documents pointed to possible other conspirators.
Several documents obtained earlier this year by AP were not provided to the bomber's defense before he was convicted, and his original lawyer said he believes the omissions kept jurors from considering other possible accomplices in the case.
Some evidence was evidently destroyed. Documents show the FBI and prosecutors ordered the destruction in 1999 of evidence from a bank robbery they once suspected linked McVeigh to white supremacists who were threatening before McVeigh's bombing to attack the government.
The Burmeister investigation concerns forensic evidence in the case, and conflicting stories he gave interviewers in 1995 and 1995, including:
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