Eric Rudolph Charged in Bombings
Eric Rudolph, suspect in a fatal clinic bombing in Birmingham, has been charged in the 1996 Olympic park bombing and two other Atlanta-area attacks in 1997.
Federal authorities have charged Eric Robert Rudolph, the suspect in the Jan. 29 fatal bombing of a Birmingham, Ala., abortion clinic, with the 1996 Olympic Park Bombing and two other Atlanta-area terrorist attacks in early 1997.
Officials say that nails and steel plates recovered from the Centennial Olympic Park bombing, which killed two people and left 100 injured, linked Rudolph to the other bombings.
FBI Director Louis Freeh and Attorney General Janet Reno announced the new charges against Rudolph, 32, saying they wanted to discourage anti-abortion sympathizers from helping a man they described as a cold-blooded killer out to hurt as many people as possible.
"This man is no hero," Freeh told reporters in October. "The bombs that exploded were carefully designed to the maximum extent to kill and maim and injure the innocent."
A secondary bomb left at a Sandy Spring, Ga., women's clinic was aimed at rescue and police personnel and injured seven people when it exploded an hour after the first. Another secondary device was placed at The Otherside Lounge in Atlanta but was detonated by police.
The latest attack, at the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham, killed a police officer and maimed the clinic's head nurse. Nine months after that blast, Rudolph remained at large, the object of one of the largest sustained manhunts in FBI history.
