FEDS PLANNED EARLY '95 RAID ON OKLAHOMA COMPOUND

Mysterious German targeted for arrest that never happened

By RYAN ROSS

April 8, 1997 / DENVER � Federal  agents  were  planning  to
raid an eastern Oklahoma religious compound  in  early  1995
to arrest a German  national  with  connections  to  accused
Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh,  government  documents
show.

The  records  indicate  that  as  part   of   a   "sensitive
investigation"  by  agents  with  the  federal   Bureau   of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Andreas Strassmeir was  going
to be  arrested  and  charged  with  possessing  an  illegal
weapon and being in the U.S. illegally.

According  to  a  memo  by  Immigration  and  Naturalization
Service agent Debra Bryant ,  ATF  agent  Angela  Finley  of
Tulsa said she needed evidence Strassmeir was  in  the  U.S.
illegally before the arrest could be made. INS agent  Bryant
said she had ordered the agency to  generate  a  certificate
stating as much.

The certificate was produced.  It�s  dated  Feb.  16,  1995.
But no raid occurred.

The failure of federal agents to follow on  their  plans  to
arrest  Strassmeir  is  likely  to  be  cited  by  McVeigh�s
lawyers as evidence federal agents bungled  their  probe  of
Strassmeir, and therefore share  blame  for  the  April  19,
1995 bombing in Oklahoma City that killed 168.

Strassmeir was  being  watched  in  the  months  before  the
blast by a government informant. The informant told her  ATF
handler that Strassmeir was urging people  to  bomb  federal
buildings. Strassmeir had even cased  federal  buildings  in
late 1994 and early 1995, the informant said.

The informant was reporting  to  ATF  agent  Angela  Finley,
the same agent who told the INS in late 1994  that  she  was
planning  to  arrest  Strassmeir.  As  Digital  City  Denver
reported last month, Finley is  also  the  agent  who  asked
Oklahoma State Patrol authorities  to  issue  an  alert  for
Strassmeir.

In addition, an  Oklahoma  State  Patrol  officer  told  FBI
agents after the blast that Strassmeir is "alleged" to  have
trained  "platoon-sized"  groups  of  militia  members  from
around the country every three months while  security  chief
at Elohim City, the religious compound  in  Oklahoma  that�s
home to racial separatists.

Elohim City is also burial  place  for  Richard  Snell,  who
according to  associates  plotted  to  bomb  the  Alfred  P.
Murrah building in the mid-Eighties. Snell was  executed  on
April 19, 1995, the day of the Oklahoma  City  bombing  (see
article "Agent Knew of Bomb Figure").

Lawyers in the bombing  case  are  prohibited  by  order  of
presiding  Judge  Richard  Matsch  from  discussing  matters
likely to arise at trial, but McVeigh lawyer  Stephen  Jones
referred briefly to what he claimed  were  government  plans
to arrest Strassmeir in a motion he filed  last  month  with
the federal appeals court.

The  record  indicating  that  ATF  agent  Finley  wanted  a
certificate that Strassmeir was in the U.S. illegally  is  a
hand-written note by an unidentified author, scribbled on  a
printout of an INS database that  was  pulled  on  Dec.  14,
1994.

The memo from INS  agent  Bryant  isn�t  dated,  but  in  it
Bryant reports that according to Finley of the ATF  the  ATF
has "an on-going case" on Strassmeir  "which  she  described
as 'sensitive� for an unknown reason."

"He�s buying guns but that�s all she said," Bryant wrote.

Bryant said she expected it would take about  6-8  weeks  to
produce a  certificate  that  Strassmeir  was  in  the  U.S.
illegally. She added that Finley  had  said  she  wanted  to
know if an INS agent would accompany ATF  agents  when  they
arrest Strassmeir.

In a document  dated  Jan.  5,  1995  and  titled  "criminal
alien   information   referred   to   investigations,"    an
unidentified  author  quotes  Finley  as  asking   for   INS
participation in a "raid" to occur the next month.

The document certifying that  Strassmeir  was  in  the  U.S.
illegally  is  dated  Feb.  16,  1995.  The  records   don�t
indicate why the raid was called off.

In the request to the state patrol  to  issue  an  alert  on
Strassmeir, ATF agent Finley indicates that  Strassmeir  has
been in the U.S. illegally since  1991.  The  new  documents
don�t shed any light on why Strassmeir hadn�t been  arrested
.

Strassmeir left the U.S. on his own in early  1996.  He  has
since denied any involvement in the bombing ,  and  says  he
met McVeigh only once. That was in 1993, he said.  They  had
a brief conversation of no consequence, he says.

Original articles and artwork Copyright  1997  Digital  City
Denver.