An American bomber wants to be executed on television

Timothy McVeigh, convicted in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 people, wants his scheduled May 16 execution to be broadcast on television, he wrote in a letter published in the Sunday edition of The Oklahoman newspaper. The paper said the Federal Bureau of Prisons was reviewing the possibility of a closed-circuit telecast for surviving victims of the bombing. It said a national broadcast of the execution had not been discussed. Mr. McVeigh awaits execution on federal death row in Terre Haute for detonating a truck bomb on April 19, 1995, that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and wounding hundreds. Many are said to oppose the idea. For example, Martha Kight, whose 23-year-old daughter Frankie Merrell died in the blast, told Reuters she does not want to witness the execution and was opposed to Mr. McVeigh's proposal. "He wants to be an icon, he wants to be a martyr," Mrs. Kight said. "I think it should be done as quietly as it can be."