Oklahoma conspirator awaits his fate

The second stage of court proceedings against Terry Nichols - the sentencing hearing - opened in Denver yesterday, with jurors facing the consequences of the divided verdict they delivered last week. They had found Nichols, 42, guilty of conspiring to bomb the US federal building in Oklahoma City in April 1995, but not guilty of murder. The bombing killed 168 people.

Nichols was accused of plotting the crime with Timothy McVeigh, 29, who was sentenced to death last June. Although Nichols could also receive the death penalty on the conspiracy conviction alone, legal experts believe his conviction on the lesser charges makes it highly unlikely

They say the jury's verdict showed their intention to distinguish between McVeigh's primary responsibility for the bombing and that of Nichols, accused of supplying the explosives, but who was several hundred miles from Oklahoma City at the time of the bombing.

- Mary Dejevsky,

Washington