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![]() Wednesday, December 24, 1997 Published at 01:46 GMT ![]() ![]() World: Americas ![]() Second Oklahoma bombing suspect guilty ![]() The Oklahoma bombing stunned America ![]() The death penalty will still be considered for Terry Nichols, the man convicted of helping plan the Oklahoma City bombing two-and-a-half years ago. A judge in Denver has rejected a defence request to block the death penalty because Nichols was found not guilty of murder. The jury in the second Oklahoma City bombing trial convicted Nichols of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter for the 1995 attack that killed 168 people.
He was convicted of the lesser, non-capital offence of involuntary manslaughter. However, the conspiracy count could result in a death sentence. Jurors will now be asked to decide if Nichols should face the death sentence. His defence will argue that the court has no right to consider that.
Afterwards, Tom Kight, whose stepdaughter died in the bombing, said: "It's a very hollow and shallow victory. "I guess those 12 jurors saw something different than I saw. It's an empty feeling." Prosecutors argued that Nichols worked side by side with his old army friend Timothy McVeigh, who has already been sentenced to death for the bombing, to avenge what they believed were abuses of power by the American government.
McVeigh and Nichols watched the Waco siege and fire on television together, the prosecution maintained.
In his home investigators found a drill bit which, the prosecution said, was used in the theft of detonators and phone records showed him to be in regular contact with McVeigh. During the trial Nichols' defence stressed he was in Herington, Kansas, with his family at the time of the attack.
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