CHICAGO, Aug 9 (AFP) - Terry Nichols, the convicted accomplice of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, was sentenced to life without parole Monday, two months after prosecutors failed to convince a jury to impose the death penalty.
Convicted in Oklahoma state court in June on 161 counts of first-degree murder, Nichols was sentenced to life on each count. District Judge Steven Taylor ordered the terms to run consecutively.
Nichols, 49, had been convicted and sentenced to life without parole by a federal court in 1998 for the deaths of eight federal agents who perished in the blast.
On that occasion the jury had been deadlocked on the issue of the death penalty and prosecutors had sought the second trial in state court in a bid to secure a capital sentence.
Once again, however, the jury was unable to agree, leaving the judge no choice but to impose the life sentences.
The April 19, 1995 attack was the most deadly act of domestic terrorism, killing 168 people, including 19 children, and injuring 500 more.
Nichols declined to testify in either trial, but on Monday he submitted a written statement Monday in which he asked for the forgiveness of all those affected by the bombing.
"Words cannot adequately express the sorrow I have felt over the years for the grief they have all suffered," he said.
Federal authorities executed McVeigh June 11, 2001. During his time on death row, the Gulf War veteran spoke openly of his part in the bombing and the anti-government hatred that motivated him.
According to prosecutors, Nichols aided McVeigh by assembling some of the ingredients of the massive fertilizer bomb that devastated Oklahoma City's Alfred P. Murrah federal building.
Nichols' defense attorneys had insisted their client was merely the government's scapegoat for a much larger conspiracy.