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09/05/2001 |
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ROME, May 9 (Reuters) - A plan to broadcast the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to relatives of those who died in the blast is �disgusting� and will not necessarily help the healing process, Catholic representatives said on Tuesday. McVeigh is due to be killed by lethal injection on May 16 and his death will be watched on closed-circuit television by some 300 people, including relatives of the 168 killed when he bombed a federal building in 1995. �This is just making a spectacle of capital punishment,� said moral theologian Father Gino Concetti. �It is a disgusting form of publicity�. Others questioned the usefulness of watching McVeigh die. �Anyone who thinks that witnessing (the execution) will make up for their loss are deluding themselves,� said Mario Marazziti of Catholic peace group Sant Egidio. The issue of whether or not to watch McVeigh�s execution has split the victims� families as well. Bud Welch, whose daughter died in the bomb, has trekked across the United States fighting to save McVeigh from the death penalty while another victim�s father, Paul Howell, said he was happy to have been picked to watch the execution up close. Howell is one of 10 relatives or survivors of the attack, seen as the worst case of terrorism on U.S. soil, who will watch McVeigh die from behind a glass wall in an Indiana prison. Others who have asked to see his last moments will watch a television broadcast in Oklahoma City. �(The broadcast) will foster sadism and the desire for vendetta while instead people, especially if they are believers, should learn how to forgive,� Concetti told Reuters, adding that vendettas could not be tolerated in the light of the gospel. Marazziti said forgiveness was the only way forward. �I hope the families of the victims can find meaning to life in reconciliation rather than in hatred,� he said. The Vatican has repeatedly spoken out against the death penalty and Pope John Paul is among those who have urged President George W. Bush to spare McVeigh�s life. FEDERAL FORCE The 33-year-old�s death is the first execution by the U.S. federal government for 38 years although plenty of convicted criminals have been killed by individuai states. �The fact that it is the federal government executing someone makes the situation even more worrying,� said Concetti, whose views are thought to reflect those of the Pope. �Worrying because while the highest state authorities should work in line with the values of justice, they should also serve freedom and the immunity and dignity of human life� McVeigh was convicted in 1997 for detonating a truck bomb which blew the side off the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 19 children among others. McVeigh said he built the bomb but has expressed no remorse and called the children�s deaths �collateral damage� Marazziti said the extent of McVeigh�s crime fuelled the fight to keep the death penalty in place. �He is the perfect model of the worst criminal who committed a horrible crime and is unrepentant,� he said. �But that doesn�t change the fact that saying people need compensation is a huge lie.�
Jane Barret
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