FBI says videotape poses threat

By Nolan Clay

Published: November 1, 2007

The FBI asked a federal judge on Wednesday to reconsider his decision to let an attorney videotape an interview with Terry Nichols and another inmate about the Oklahoma City bombing.

The federal Bureau of Prisons "has determined that a video recording poses a threat to the security of the institutions where these individuals are confined,” the FBI's attorneys argued.

"In this case, the BOP has determined that allowing recording equipment onto the institutions' grounds and into the institutions where these individuals are confined ... is detrimental to the order and security of the prisons and may violate the privacy of others,” the attorneys told the judge in a legal filing.

The FBI also raised legal objections to the videotaping.

The attorney wants to question and videotape Nichols and convicted murderer David Paul Hammer, who was on death row with bomber Timothy McVeigh.

The attorney is seeking information to support his theory his younger brother was killed at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center in August 1995 during an interrogation.

He contends authorities mistook his brother for a bombing suspect, bank robber Richard Guthrie.

He is suing the FBI for records to support his theory. Federal and local officials concluded the brother, Kenneth Trentadue, committed suicide in his cell.

Nichols, a convicted murderer, is serving life sentences at the maximum-security federal penitentiary in Colorado for the bombing.

Hammer claims McVeigh revealed to him the identities of other accomplices. Hammer is at the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Ind.

McVeigh told biographers only Nichols helped him.

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