Return to Top
|
- A Federal district court in Columbus,
Ohio, convicted white supremacist Peter Langan, 39, of four charges related to assault
and weapons, including assault of a Federal officer with a pistol. A member of the Aryan
Republican Army, Langan led a gang that the authorities say robbed 22 banks to finance
the overthrow of the Federal Government. (The New York Times, 10/9/97)
- In accordance with the Antiterrorism Act of April
1996, the State Department designated 30 groups as foreign terrorist organizations
making it illegal to provide funds for them and denying their members U.S. visas. (The
New York Times, 10/9/97)
- White supremacist James Viefhaus Jr., 28, was
sentenced to three years in prison in connection with a plot to bomb 15 cities. (The
New York Times, 10/17/97)
- Montana Freemen leader LeRoy Schweitzer was
sentenced by a Federal judge in Helena, Montana, to 27 months in prison on charges
stemming from failing to pay income taxes and failing to answer summonses. He is awaiting
trial next spring on other felony criminal charges stemming from the Freemen's activities,
including conspiracy, bank and mail fraud and threatening to kill a Federal judge. (USA
Today, 10/24/97)
- In an executive order, President Clinton imposed
wide-ranging economic sanctions on Sudan, ordering the seizure of Sudanese
government assets in the United States and banning all U.S. investment in Sudan and most
bilateral trade. (The Washington Post, 11/5/97)
- The leader of the Republic of Texas separatist
group, Richard McLaren, was sentenced to 99 years in prison and his senior aide, Robert
Otto, received a sentence of 50 years for plotting an abduction that led to a weeklong
standoff with police in April 1997. (The Washington Post, 11/5/97)
- Three members of an anti-government militia group,
Verne Jay Merrell, 52, Charles H. Barbee, 45, and Robert S. Berry, 43, were sentenced to
life imprisonment for a series of pipe bombings. (AP, 11/4/97)
- A Virginia jury convicted Pakistani Mir Amal Kansi,
33, of murder in the January 1993 shooting deaths of two CIA employees outside the
agency's Virginia headquarters. Several days later, the jury recommended the death
penalty. (The Washington Post, 11/11/97, 11/15/97)
- A Manhattan jury found Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, 29,
and Eyad Ismoil, 26, guilty of plotting and carrying out the February 1993 World Trade
Center bombing that killed six people and injured more than 1,000. Considered the
mastermind of the bombing, Yousef was later sentenced to life imprisonment without parole.
(UPI, 11/12/97)
- The House of Representatives has approved the Iran
Missile Proliferation Sanctions Act, which would provide for stronger sanctions
against countries, companies or research institutes helping Iran develop ballistic
missiles. A similar bill is pending in the Senate. (Jewish Telegraphic Agency, 11/17/97)
- In its annual report on the spread of weapons of mass
destruction, the U.S. Defense Department details evidence that Iran has
closely linked its chemical-weapons and ballistic-missile programs, that Libya has
a vast underground chemical-weapons complex and that Syria is actively developing chemical
weapons and ballistic missiles. (Long Island Newsday, 12/1/97)
- U.S. officials arrested and have charged Canadian
citizen Felix Rolando Peterson-Coplin, 63, with the armed hijacking of an Eastern
Airlines plane to Cuba in 1969. (Agence France-Presse, 12/12/97)
- An Arkansas grand jury has indicted three men with
plotting to overthrow the U.S. Government and establish a separate nation, the Aryan
People's Republic. Two of the men, confessed white supremacist Chevie Kehoe, 24, and
Daniel Lewis Lee, 24, were charged with murder, racketeering and conspiracy. The third
man, Faron Lovelace, 40, was charged with a single count of racketeering. Prosecutors say
the men wanted to create their republic by a campaign of murder, robberies and
kidnappings. Mr. Kehoe and Mr. Lee were previously charged in state court with the 1996
deaths of an Arkansas gun dealer and his family. (UPI, 12/13/97, The New York Times,
12/14/97)
- A Denver jury found Terry L. Nichols, 42, guilty
of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the April 1995 bombing of the Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict
regarding his sentence, so Nichols can-not receive the death sentence and currently awaits
sentencing by the judge. (The New York Times, 12/24/97)
|
