McVeigh starts pre-execution isolation process

Oklahoma prison officials began to isolate Timothy McVeigh today, limiting contacts with family, lawyers and spiritual advisers…

Oklahoma prison officials began to isolate Timothy McVeigh today, limiting contacts with family, lawyers and spiritual advisers for the week before his execution.

Twenty-four to 72 hours before the May 16th execution, McVeigh will be moved from his cell to another one inside a windowless building on the prison grounds just steps from the room where he is scheduled to die.

A US Bureau of Prisons spokesman said the restrictions, which had been planned and announced in advance, do not prevent McVeigh (33) from getting or writing letters.

McVeigh is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 7 a.m. CDT (8 a.m. EDT/1200 GMT) at the federal prison near the Indiana city for detonating a truck bomb outside the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

READ MORE

The worst act of terrorism ever on US soil killed 168 people and injured hundreds more.

"He has no appeals left," said Ms Marybeth Cully of the Bureau of Prisons.

President George W. Bush could commute his sentence, grant a delay or even a pardon, but all are unlikely. When governor of Texas, Mr Bush presided over the state that leads America in executions.

McVeigh's execution on would be the first by the federal government since 1963. The 38 states that have the death penalty have killed over 700 inmates since the US Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976.