Ruby Ridge's Randy Weaver says McVeigh's reason for bombing rings hollow

BEDFORD, Ind. (AP) _ The white separatist who was at the center of the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff says Timothy McVeigh's explanation for why he bombed the Oklahoma City federal building rings hollow.

Saturday, March 31st 2001, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

BEDFORD, Ind. (AP) _ The white separatist who was at the center of the 1992 Ruby Ridge standoff says Timothy McVeigh's explanation for why he bombed the Oklahoma City federal building rings hollow.

In a new book on the bombing, McVeigh says he targeted the federal building in revenge for federal agents' attacks at northern Idaho's Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas.

``What the U.S. government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge was dirty. And I gave dirty back to them at Oklahoma City,'' McVeigh told the authors of ``American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing''.

But white separatist Randy Weaver said McVeigh's explanation for why he made and exploded a truck-bomb in front of the federal building, killing 168 people on April 19, 1995, falls short.

``McVeigh took the law into his own hands. He had justified it in his own mind. I don't agree with him at all,'' Weaver, whose wife and son died in the Ruby Ridge shootout, said Thursday.

``He has more anger in him than I do, and I don't know how that could be.''

Weaver, who is southern Indiana this weekend to appear at a gun and knife show in Bedford, added: ``What happened to me and my family is something we can never forget.''

During the Ruby Ridge conflict, Weaver's 14-year-old son, Samuel, was shot twice, once in the arm and then fatally in the back, and his wife, Vicki, was killed by a gunshot wound to the head fired by federal snipers.

The shooting, in which a federal Marshal also was killed, occurred three years after Weaver allegedly sold two illegally sawed-off shotguns to undercover federal agents.

On April 19, 1993, during an assault by federal agents, the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, burned to the ground, killing about 80 members of the cult.

Federal prosecutors say the Oklahoma bombing was retaliation for what happened at Waco, which occurred exactly two years earlier.

McVeigh is scheduled to be executed May 16 at the U.S. Penitentiary near Terre Haute, Ind.

Weaver and his daughter, Sara, have written a book, ``The Federal Siege At Ruby Ridge,'' that details the events at Ruby Ridge. He will be selling his book at the Bedford National Guard Armory Saturday and Sunday.

``We wrote the book for Sam and Vicki and to let people know something like this can happen to anyone and that we must keep an eye on our civil servants,'' Weaver said.