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McVeigh to Move to a New Cell Outside Death Chamber
TERRE HAUTE, Indiana, June 9 (News Agencies) - Prison guards on Saturday prepared to move convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh to a holding cell outside the death chamber where he is scheduled to be executed by lethal injection early Monday.
News reporters throughout the day poured into this town of 60,000, accompanied by an unprecedented flood of onlookers, numbered in the tens of thousands by local police.
McVeigh "will be transferred in a special confinement unit somewhere between today and tomorrow morning," federal prison spokesman Richard Russell said Saturday.
McVeigh is to be transferred to a cell about three square meters large located in a small red brick building far from the main prison site.
The brick building also houses the death chamber and separate rooms for witnesses to view executions. McVeigh has been "very calm and cooperating with us all the time," prison director Harley Lapin said.
Russell was not able to say whether McVeigh's father Bill or other family members were planning a final visit before his execution.
McVeigh had already said good-bye to his relatives before May 16, the initial date set for his execution. But with just days to go the government postponed the execution to June 11 following a dramatic revelation that the FBI failed to hand over all of the documents relevant to the case to McVeigh's attorneys.
After McVeigh is transferred to the holding cell, visits and telephone calls will be limited and there will be no physical contact permitted.
Two hours before his execution any last visitors will be asked to leave the prison. McVeigh will be searched and made to change clothes. Guards will then handcuff McVeigh and escort him to the death chamber.
There, at 7:00 am (1200 GMT) Monday, a mixture of sodium penthotal, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride will be injected into his veins in quantities 'sufficient to cause death,' as per prison regulations.
Some 300 people -- survivors of the bombing and close relatives of the dead -- will watch the execution Monday via a closed circuit broadcast to Oklahoma City. A federal appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled late Friday that McVeigh's execution may not be videotaped.
Hundreds of police officers have been deployed around the prison and throughout the region, on guard for potential terrorist acts by McVeigh sympathizers.
Hundreds of demonstrators are expected to arrive soon in Terre Haute, including death penalty supporters and opponents.
Late Thursday McVeigh renounced his right to appeal to the US Supreme Court after a federal judge refused to grant him a stay of execution.
The decorated Gulf War veteran, now 33, was author of the worst terrorist attack ever committed on US soil, killing 168 people and injuring more than 600.
A calm spring morning was transformed into horror at 9:02 am on April 19, 1995, when McVeigh's truck bomb exploded outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.
McVeigh was stopped by police north of the city for driving without a license plate. He was quickly linked to the bombing and, after a trial, on June 13, 1997 was sentenced to die.
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