DAMNING evidence from a series of witnesses against Mr Timothy McVeigh, who is accused of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, has left the defence struggling to save him from the death penalty.
As the trial enters its third week, observers have been surprised at the speed and efficiency of the prosecution case. Estimates that the trial could last until July have been revised as the prosecution calls its witnesses in quick succession leaving the defence little opening for cross-examination.
Mr McVeigh (29), a decorated Gulf War veteran, faces the death sentence if found guilty of the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19th, 1995, which left 168 dead and 850 injured. The trial had to be moved to Denver, Colorado, in an attempt to ensure an unbiased jury.
The prosecution is cleverly alternating emotional testimony from relatives of victims and survivors with technical, forensic evidence. But the case against Mr McVeigh seemed to become overwhelming after the evidence from his younger sister and from a couple who claim that he discussed the bombing with them as he was planning it.
A former army comrade, Mr Michael Fortier, has testified that Mr McVeigh tried to persuade him to help with the making of the bomb and that they examined the building while discussing the bombing. According to Mr Fortier, the accused man said that he wanted to avenge those who died in the FBI raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco and this was why he choose the anniversary of the raid for the Oklahoma bombing. Mr McVeigh told him he wanted to cause a "general uprising in America".
Mr Fortier told the court that Mr McVeigh justified the deaths he would cause by comparing the federal employees in the building to the storm troopers in the Star Wars films, saying they were "part of an evil empire, guilty by association".
Mr McVeigh also said they were part of a UN plot to form a "one-world government" that would "disarm the American public, take their guns away," Mr Fortier testified.
Mr Fortier has been granted immunity from being charged as an accomplice in return for his testimony by pleading guilty to lesser crimes, such as failure to report the plot and lying to the FBI. But the defence is trying to undermine his reliability by highlighting his drug use and boasting how he could "make up something juicy" and make money from knowing Mr McVeigh.
Mr Fortier's wife, Lori, has told the court that she helped to make a false driving licence for Mr McVeigh in the name of "Robert Kling". The prosecution claims that it was under this name that Mr McVeigh hired the truck used to carry the explosive in the bombing.
In other damning testimony, Mr McVeigh's sister, Jennifer, portrayed him as obsessed with hatred for the government and federal agents whom he called "fascist tyrants". He told her he had passed from the "propaganda stage" to the "action stage" in his anti-government campaign.
The prosecution has so far not used forensic evidence from the FBI laboratory which will claim that Mr McVeigh's clothes had traces of explosives when he was arrested less than two hours after the bomb exploded. A recent government report has criticised the work of the laboratory as unreliable including that done in the Oklahoma investigation.