By
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) - The government has scheduled his execution date, and Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh insists he doesn't plan a last-minute bid for presidential clemency.
McVeigh, 32, allowed a deadline for resuming that process to expire last week, and the Federal Bureau of Prisons on Tuesday set a May 16 date for his execution by injection.
Although he reserved the right to seek executive clemency, McVeigh told The Buffalo News of Buffalo, N.Y., that he would not ask for mercy from George W. Bush, who will be inaugurated on Saturday.
"I harbor no illusions that George 'The Reaper' Bush would grant me a commutation of sentence, nor would I beg any man to spare my life," McVeigh, a native of Pendleton, N.Y., said in response to written questions from the newspaper.
McVeigh's attorneys insisted on Tuesday, however, that their client still might seek clemency. "That issue is still under consideration," said lawyer Nathan Chambers of Denver.
McVeigh has 30 days to file a petition for clemency with the Justice Department, which would make a recommendation to the president.
Bush is a firm death penalty supporter. During his nearly six-year tenure as Texas governor, 152 inmates were put to death; only once did he use his power to stop an execution.
Some survivors of the blast and relatives of people killed wondered what motivated McVeigh to drop his appeals, with some speculating that he wants to become a martyr for anti-government causes or wants to mock the government with a petition for clemency, knowing federal authorities haven't put anyone to death in nearly 40 years.
"I just feel like it's his way of controlling things right down to the very end," said Jeannine Gist, whose daughter died in the April 19, 1995, explosion.
McVeigh told the newspaper only that he that he did not time his actions in an effort to engineer an execution date coinciding with the anniversary of the bombing, but simply withdrew his appeals under a Dec. 12 deadline.
"On death row, an inmate lives death every day, so no one is more aware of the factors that weigh into such a decision as the inmate himself," McVeigh told the newspaper.
McVeigh also reiterated that he does not want his body to be autopsied. "I was sentenced to death, not to death and disembowelment."
McVeigh was convicted of murder and conspiracy for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people and injured hundreds of others. It was the deadliest act of terrorism ever committed on U.S. soil.
