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Tuesday, 12 June, 2001, 05:16 GMT 06:16 UK
Europe criticises McVeigh execution
![]() First stop: Bush can expect protesters in Madrid
European leaders condemned the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as cruel and barbaric ahead of George W Bush's first visit to the continent as president.
Criticism came from several sources including the Swedish Government, which currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union.
McVeigh died by lethal injection at 0714 local time (1214GMT) on Monday, six years after killing 168 people in the worst-ever peacetime attack on US soil. The 33-year-old was the first federal prisoner to be executed for 38 years.
"The victims of the Oklahoma City bombing have been given not vengeance but justice," he said in a statement at the White House. Mr Bush starts his European tour in Madrid on Tuesday. The visit is already controversial because of European anger at Washington's abandoning of the Kyoto protocol on the environment. Critics European critics of capital punishment called the execution a vengeful, morally unjustifiable way of making McVeigh pay for his crime.
"By executing the first federal death row prisoner in nearly four decades, the USA has allowed vengeance to triumph over justice and distanced itself yet further from the aspirations of the international community," the London-based human rights group Amnesty International said. The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe also voiced opposition to the execution.
Antonio Maria Pereira, president of the Portuguese human rights group Law and Justice, denounced the US death penalty as "barbarism inappropriate to our times". Witnesses Relatives of victims who died in the attack were among those witnessing the execution in Terre Haute. Other relatives watched in Oklahoma City by closed-circuit television.
"My head is bloody but unbowed," it reads, before concluding: "I am the master of my fate, I am the captain of my soul." Journalists who witnessed the proceedings described how McVeigh made eye contact with each witness, including the relatives, and died with his eyes open. "He lay there very still," said witness Shepard Smith. "He never said a word." 'Relief' of the relatives One mother whose four-year-old daughter was among McVeigh's victims greeted his death with relief.
She said his death was like a full-stop at the end of a sentence, but her suffering would not end. "I don't think anything can bring me peace. I'll never get over the death of my daughter. When I die that's when I'll get closure," she said.
He added: "[McVeigh] had a look of defiance and if he could do it all again, he would." McVeigh's lawyer, Robert Nigh, attacked the execution, which he also witnessed. "There is nothing reasonable or moral about what we have done today," he said. "We have made killing a part of the healing process."
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