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February 5, 1996

Conspiracy theory pursued

Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - An attorney for one of two men charged in the federal building bombing says his defense team is investigating the possibility that an international conspiracy was behind the blast.

"We are certainly pursuing an investigation of that line and have been for some months," said Stephen Jones, a lawyer for defendant Timothy McVeigh.

Jones said Sunday he has hired the London firm of Kingsley Napley to pursue leads that suggest international connections in the April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 169 people and injured more than 500.

A spokesman for the firm, Charles Murray, told The Associated Press it was hired three weeks ago to make inquiries in Britain and to put McVeigh's defense attorneys in touch with forensic experts.

McVeigh, 27, and Terry Nichols, 40, face federal murder and conspiracy charges.

London's Sunday Times reported that the FBI is investigating claims that British and German neo-Nazis helped plan the bombing.

"The attorney general herself said the FBI would certainly be justified to look at a European connection," Jones said, referring to Attorney General Janet Reno. "I wouldn't be surprised if we were pursuing these leads."

Messages left with the FBI's office in Oklahoma City seeking comment on the Times report were not returned.

Jones has complained that the government's bombing investigation "is too narrow, too focused" on McVeigh and Nichols.

"We believe that the evidence may suggest a broader, deeper, more sophisticated conspiracy," Jones said. He said there is strong evidence that members of the American far right have visited Europe and have developed links with European extremists.

The Times said McVeigh's lawyers believe the bombing may have been intended to avenge the execution of Richard Snell, an American neo-Nazi who was put to death in Arkansas on the day of the bombing for the murder of a pawn shop operator he mistakenly thought was Jewish.

Snell's widow said she told the FBI she had no reason to believe her husband's supporters had anything to do with the explosion.

"They seemed happy with what I had to tell them, which was nothing," Mrs. Snell said Sunday from her home in Texarkana, Texas.


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