McVeigh rules out clemency plea as execution is set for Monday

Lawyers for Timothy McVeigh have said the Oklahoma bomber now regards even a clemency appeal as a "meaningless gesture". With all further legal appeals halted, they said he was prepared to die on Monday morning.

McVeigh (33) is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection at 7 a.m. at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, for detonating a massive lorry bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people in 1995.

Following the rejection of an appeal for a stay of execution by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeal in Denver last Thursday, McVeigh's lawyer, Mr Rob Nigh, told journalists that his client now wanted to prepare for the inevitability of his death. He has forgone his right to appeal to the Supreme Court.

"He has family and friends that he must say his goodbyes to, the kind of introspection and psychological preparation he has to go through only he can know and other people in his position can know," Mr Nigh said outside the Appeals Court.

Mr Nigh said that McVeigh had allowed his appeals to be renewed because he wanted to try to prove that the FBI committed fraud by withholding material. He said that he didn't try to talk McVeigh out of his decision because "his mind was resolved".

Prison officials said he was likely to be moved soon from his cell in the federal jail in Terre Haute to the execution building, a windowless, two storey brick structure surrounded by a fence topped with barbed wire. He will be the first federal prisoner executed since 1963.

The Appeal Court, in a speedy review of the decision of his trial judge not to grant a stay, ruled that McVeigh "utterly failed to demonstrate substantial grounds" why he should not be put to death.

His lawyers had argued in the District Court on Wednesday that the government had perpetrated a "fraud upon the court" when the FBI withheld more than 4,000 pages of potentially exculpatory files until last month. Given more time, they hoped, the files would lead to a new sentencing hearing if they showed the existence of a broader conspiracy.

The Appeals Court did not accept the argument of fraud.

Despite his willingness to face execution, McVeigh's lawyers continued to raise concerns about the judicial process. "The McVeigh case has been a test of our system," said another of McVeigh's lawyers, Mr Richard Burr. "In the lifetimes of all of us today, there has never been a case that has tested the fairness of our judicial system like this one. And we have not passed the test."