Eric Rudolph

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FBI wanted photo of Eric Rudolph

Eric Robert Rudolph (* 19th September 1966 in Merritt Iceland , Florida ) was known as bombers and assassins of the bombing at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta .

Personal background

Rudolph grew up in a Roman Catholic family. When he was 15 years old, he lost his father. The mother then moved with the family to North Carolina .

As a teenager, Eric Rudolph denied the Holocaust . The followers of survivalism believed in the imminent collapse of the existing order, which was connected with a struggle of all against all as well as against the forces of nature. Rudolph was also caught up in this ideology . So survival training played a big part in his life.

After working as a carpenter for a time , he completed a training program with the United States Army in 1987 . In 1989 he was discharged from the army after being found with marijuana .

Bomb attacks

Attack on the Atlanta Olympics

On July 27, 1996, during the Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Rudolph carried out a bomb attack that killed two people and injured 111 others. By his own admission, his motive was hatred of the " regime " in Washington, DC The FBI classified the attack as a terrorist attack.

This attack was initially wrongly accused of security guard Richard Jewell . According to this, he tried to make a name for himself by discovering the bomb he planted himself and the evacuation he initiated . Jewell was later rehabilitated.

Attacks on gay clubs and abortion clinics

Rudolph was active in the right to life movement. He was responsible for a series of bombings against abortion and homosexuals in the states of Alabama and Georgia in the late 1990s . On January 16, 1997, he set off two bombs in an abortion clinic north of Atlanta, and a month later (February 21) again two bombs in a bar with a gay and lesbian audience, also in Atlanta. Four people were injured. In his bombing of a gynecological clinic in Birmingham, Alabama on January 29, 1998, a security guard died, a nurse was seriously injured and lost an eye. On April 13, 2005, Rudolph also confessed to this attack. In 1998, he assumed responsibility for these attacks on behalf of the Army of God terrorist organization , which also hosts its website on its website, and justified them in retaliation for the unsuccessful storming of the Branch Davidians ranch in Waco , Texas by federal authorities in 1993 of the 82 members died. His letter ended with the slogan: "Death of the New World Order ".

Escape and imprisonment

After the attack on an abortion clinic in Birmingham, he was initially sought as a witness after his gray to pick up the brand Nissan had recognized. On May 5, he was added to the FBI's Top Ten Wanted List . A $ 1 million reward was offered. In October 1998, Attorney General Janet Reno also indicted him for the three Atlanta bombings. He then hid in caves and former mines in the Nantahala National Forest in North Carolina for four and a half years. The search for him is said to have cost a total of $ 24 million. On May 31, 2003, he was arrested without resisting in Murphy , North Carolina. Instructions for building bombs were also found there. A proximity to the Christian Identity movement could not be proven during the investigation. On April 8, 2005, he was sentenced to four life imprisonment terms. To avoid the death penalty , he helped the FBI find the explosives he had been hiding in the woods. He also made a full confession as part of the deal reached by his defense attorney, Judy Clarke .

After his conviction, Rudolph is serving his sentence in the ADX Florence federal prison . Surviving victims of his attacks complained in 2007 that Rudolph himself was mocking them from the maximum security prison.

literature

  • Harvey W. Kushner: Rudolph, Eric (1966-) . In: same: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks / London / New Delhi 2003, p. 319 f.

Web links

Commons : Eric Rudolph  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Who is Eric Rudolph? , Columbia Broadcasting System , undated
  2. ↑ Backgrounder: Eric Robert Rudolph ( Memento of February 14, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Anti-Defamation League , June 5, 2003
  3. ↑ Events in Eric Rudoph's life , p. 4 ( memento from January 19, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), CNN, April 13, 2005
  4. ↑ a b c Doug Gross: Eric Rudolph lays out the arguments that fueled his two-year bomb attacks , Associated Press , April 14, 2005
  5. ↑ Eric Rudolph Charged in Centennial Olympic Park Bombing. Also Charged with Bombings at North Atlanta Clinic and Atlanta Nightclub . FBI, October 14, 1998.
  6. ↑ Kevin Sack: Richard Jewell, 44, Hero of Atlanta Attack, Dies , New York Times , Aug. 30, 2007
  7. ↑ Carol Mason: From Protest to Retribution: The Guerrilla Politics of Pro-life Violence . In: New Political Science . 22, No. 1, 2000, pp. 11-29. doi : 10.1080 / 713687891 .
  8. ↑ Harvey W. Kushner: Rudolph, Eric (1966–) . In: same: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks / London / New Delhi 2003, p. 319.
  9. ↑ a b Events in Eric Rudoph's life , p. 3 ( memento from January 19, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), CNN, April 13, 2005
  10. ↑ a b Events in Eric Rudoph's life , page 1 ( memento from January 20, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ), CNN, April 13, 2005
  11. ↑ Harvey W. Kushner: Waco . In: same: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks / London / New Delhi 2003, p. 398.
  12. ^ "Death to the New World Order". Harvey W. Kushner: Rudolph, Eric (1966-) . In: same: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks / London / New Delhi 2003, p. 319.
  13. ↑ Harvey W. Kushner: Rudolph, Eric (1966–) . In: same: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks / London / New Delhi 2003, p. 320.
  14. ↑ Daren Fonda, How Luck Ran Out For A Most Wanted Fugitive , Time Magazine , June 9, 2003
  15. ↑ Harvey W. Kushner: Rudolph, Eric (1966–) . In: same: Encyclopedia of Terrorism. Sage Publications, Thousand Oaks / London / New Delhi 2003, p. 320.
  16. ↑ Olympic Bomber Taunts Victims From Prison ( January 12, 2011 memento in the Internet Archive ), Associated Press, May 14, 2007
personal data
SURNAME Rudolph, Eric
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Rudolph, Eric Robert (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American assassin, carried out several bombings, including the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta
BIRTH DATE September 19, 1966
PLACE OF BIRTH Merritt Island , Florida