Grand Jury Indicts 3 in Fatal Blast at Federal Building : Terrorism: U.S. will seek death penalty for McVeigh, Nichols, the alleged masterminds of the Oklahoma City attack. Michael Fortier pleads guilty to limited counts.

OKLAHOMA CITY — Pledging to uphold the “rule of civilized society,” federal prosecutors Thursday obtained grand jury indictments against three former Army buddies for their alleged roles in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.

The indictments charge Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols as the principal conspirators, and U.S. Atty. Patrick Ryan said he will recommend next week that they be put to death for the April 19 attack that killed 168 people and injured hundreds.

The third defendant, Michael Fortier, entered a courtroom just down the hall from where the grand jury issued the indictments and--only 90 minutes after being charged--pleaded guilty to four limited counts, including a charge that he knew about the bombing but lied and failed to alert authorities.

The 26-year-old Fortier, who like his friends shared a deep hatred of the federal government but who has struck a deal with prosecutors, also revealed in the court proceeding that McVeigh and Nichols had stolen a cache of firearms from Arkansas--a theft that the government believes put in motion the financing for the April 19 bombing.

The indictments were returned by a federal grand jury of 23 Oklahoma residents, who marched solemnly into a packed courtroom at the U.S. District Courthouse, which was structurally damaged in the blast.

Directly across the street sat the rubble of the Murrah building, where engineers on Thursday were digging a 70-foot hole to seal off the old basement elevator shaft--all that remains of the downtown landmark.

At the U.S. attorney’s office several blocks away, Ryan and his team of prosecutors and FBI supervisors said that even though only three suspects have been charged, the massive federal investigation will continue for other possible suspects.

“The people of Oklahoma, indeed the entire nation, deserve to have those responsible brought to justice in a swift and fair manner,” Ryan said.

In a separate news conference at the Justice Department’s headquarters in Washington, Atty. Gen. Janet Reno also pledged that the search will continue for additional suspects.

“By their hard work,” she said of federal investigators, “they have assured us that the rules of a civilized society will be enforced.”

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The indictments allege that the bombing conspiracy began as early as last Sept. 13, when federal sources said McVeigh and others met in Fortier’s Kingman, Ariz., trailer home and began laying out their plans to blow up the building.

Specifically, McVeigh, 27, and Nichols, 40, were named in 11 counts in the indictment, including three charges that they conspired to use a “weapon of mass destruction” to kill people, that they used a bomb in a Ryder rental truck to commit the murders and that they maliciously destroyed federal property, resulting in death.

The remaining eight counts were for violating a federal murder statute that punishes the killing of a federal law enforcement officer. Among the 168 dead in the blast were eight federal law enforcement officers.

The indictment listed the names of the dead in order from oldest to youngest, ranging from 73-year-old Charles E. Hurlburt to Gabreon Bruce, a 4-month-old infant who was among 19 children who died.

Joseph Hartzler, a special assistant U.S. attorney who came here to serve as the lead prosecutor in the case, gave this sequence of events:

“McVeigh and Nichols planned this bombing. They selected the target of the Murrah building. They obtained materials to make a bomb by theft and otherwise. They constructed the bomb from those materials which they stored in various locations under false names.

“And McVeigh is specifically charged with having delivered the bomb to the Murrah building in a truck which he rented under a false name and having detonated the bomb at the Murrah building.”

Among the overt acts to further the conspiracy, the indictment charged that on Sept. 22, 1994, McVeigh rented a storage unit in the name of Shawn Rivers in Herington, Kan., and that he and Nichols bought 40 50-pound bags of ammonium nitrate in McPherson, Kan., using the name Mike Havens.

That same month, the indictment alleged, McVeigh made telephone calls trying to obtain detonation cord and racing fuel. Last Oct. 1, the grand jury alleged, the two men stole explosives from a storage locker in Marion, Kan., and two days later transported the explosives to Kingman, where they rented a storage unit for them.

Also in October, McVeigh and Nichols planned to rob a firearms dealer in Arkansas to help finance the bombing and carried out the crime on Nov. 5, the indictment charges.

But Stephen Jones, McVeigh’s defense attorney from Enid, Okla., steadfastly maintained his client’s innocence. He also suggested that the government has an informant who apparently tipped off federal marshals that a “federal facility” was going to be bombed--an apparent reference that someone other than his client was involved in the bombing.

Michael E. Tigar of Austin, Tex., the defense attorney for Nichols, said that the indictment is a recounting of allegations made earlier this summer when Nichols and McVeigh were first charged in criminal complaints in the case.

“It’s nothing but a warmed-over version of the thin circumstantial case presented to the magistrate at the preliminary hearing,” Tigar said.

Michael McGuire, an Oklahoma City defense attorney who has represented Fortier, said that his client, who Thursday began serving what likely will be at least 20 years in prison, remains deeply troubled by the human suffering caused by the blast.

“I don’t think there is any apology he could make that would be sufficient,” McGuire said.

Fortier, dressed in blue jeans, a blue shirt and white tennis shoes, recounted for U.S. District Judge David L. Russell some of his activities with McVeigh and Nichols.

The four counts to which he pleaded guilty include conspiring to transport and transporting stolen weapons, giving false statements to federal agents and misprision of a felony--knowing about the bombing conspiracy but failing to alert authorities.

On the gun-running charges, Fortier told the judge: “Sir, I agreed with Timothy McVeigh to ride to Kansas to pick up weapons he and Terry Nichols had stolen from a man in Arkansas. And I was to take them to Arizona and sell them.”

And he added: “Sir, I did in fact travel to Kansas. I rented a vehicle and transported those stolen weapons back to Arizona.”

On giving false statements, he said: “Sir, a couple of days after the Oklahoma City bombing, the FBI came to my house and asked me if I knew of any plot to bomb the building. I denied my knowledge.”

Finally, on the charge of a misprision of a felony, he said: “There were certain items at my house that I gave to my neighbor to do what he would with. I did not want them found in my house during any type of search by law enforcement.”

He described those items as a bag of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and videotapes. Sources have said that the tapes included shots of communications satellites and facilities in the Kingman area.

Fortier said in a one-page written statement to the judge that after transporting the stolen firearms and “at the request of Tim McVeigh, I sold some of the weapons and, again at the request of Tim McVeigh, I gave him some money to give to Terry Nichols.”

Hartzler, the lead prosecutor, said that even though Fortier will be the government’s key witness in the case, no special deal was given to him that would enable him to escape the possible death sentence that looms over his friends. He also denied that Fortier’s wife, Lori, was given special treatment with a grant of immunity from prosecution.

However, Hartzler acknowledged to Judge Russell that after Michael Fortier testifies at trial against the other two defendants, the government might recommend a reduction in the 23-year sentence he now faces.

“Michael Fortier was charged with every crime we could convict him of,” Hartzler said.

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In a related development, the government moved Thursday to dismiss a three-count explosives indictment against Nichols’ older brother, James D. Nichols. The indictment had charged that Nichols conspired with his brother and McVeigh to possess unregistered destructive devices at his farm in Decker, Mich.

In explaining the move, Saul A. Green, U.S. attorney in Detroit, said that the government’s continuing investigation failed to tie the explosives on the farm to the Oklahoma bombing and failed to establish that James Nichols intended to use explosives against persons or property, a requirement under the laws he was accused of violating.

Although James Nichols has denied any knowledge of the bombing, government sources emphasized Thursday that their investigation is still continuing.

Serrano reported from Oklahoma City and Ostrow from Washington.

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The Charges

The charges filed Thursday in the Oklahoma City bombing against Timothy J. McVeigh and Terry L. Nichols:

* One count of conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction to kill people and destroy federal property.

* One count of using a weapon of mass destruction that caused death and injury.

* One count of malicious destruction of federal property.

* Eight counts of murdering federal law enforcement officers.

Charges filed against Michael Fortier:

* One count of conspiracy to transport stolen firearms.

* One count of transportation of stolen firearms.

* One count of making false statements to the FBI.

* One count of misprision of a felony (intentionally concealing evidence of a crime and failing to report the plot to authorities).

Source: Associated Press