Government Has Cause to Hold Nichols, Judge Rules : Courts: Magistrate rejects defense argument that evidence falls short. Lawyer says suspect was home on day of Oklahoma City blast.

Taking aim at the weakest point in the government’s case, attorneys for Oklahoma City bombing defendant Terry L. Nichols argued Thursday that prosecutors have only circumstantial evidence against him and that it falls far short of proving their client was involved.

Defense attorney Michael Tigar suggested at a two-hour preliminary hearing that the government is bending its evidence to make it appear that Nichols was a key player in the alleged bombing conspiracy with his old Army buddy, Timothy J. McVeigh.

“I kind of believe what Sherlock Holmes said to Watson,” Tigar--whose passionate arguments were often sprinkled with Bible verses and other references to literature--told reporters after the hearing.

“It’s like a stick on the ground. It does point in one direction until you turn around and look at it from the other side and then it points in the other direction,” he said.

The arguments, however, did not convince U.S. Magistrate Ronald L. Howland, who ruled after the hearing that “probable cause is established” by the government to continue to hold Nichols, 40, without bail until a grand jury completes its review of evidence in the case.

“The quality of evidence is not diminished by the fact that it is circumstantial,” Howland said.

Nichols’ defense team also disclosed new information about their client’s actions in the days leading up to and following the April 19 bombing. Tigar said that Nichols, a gun dealer, was on his front porch in Herington, Kan., on the morning the fuel oil-and-fertilizer bomb exploded 250 miles away, destroying the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City and killing 167 people.

He contended that Nichols did not learn of the bombing until a day after the blast and that he voluntarily turned himself in to authorities when he realized that McVeigh, 27, had been charged.

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And he said that while Nichols gave McVeigh a ride from Oklahoma City to Kansas three days before the blast, he did so only because McVeigh was delivering a television set for Nichols’ son.

The hearing took place under tight security at the Federal Correctional Center here, where both Nichols and McVeigh are being held in isolated cells. In ruling against Nichols, Howland emphasized several points that he said closely tie Nichols to the bomb plot. They include:

* Nichols’ and McVeigh’s long-standing relationship, including their purchase together last fall of large amounts of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and their subsequent rental of several storage bins under false names.

* The yellow Ryder rental truck allegedly used in the bombing that was spotted by witnesses in the days before the bombing both at Nichols’ home and at a fishing lake not far away, where FBI agents believe the two men assembled the bomb.

* Letters both men wrote before the bombing leaving instructions for others in the event of their death.

Tigar can appeal by asking the judge to reconsider his decision to hold Nichols without bail. The attorney has seven days to do so and the government then would have seven days to reply before Howland would rule.

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Also on Thursday, Stephen Jones, an Enid, Okla., attorney representing McVeigh, announced that a special team of consultants on explosives and construction design will inspect the shattered, nine-story federal building on Saturday morning.

The shell then will be turned over to a private demolition company, which plans to implode the structure early Tuesday--erasing it from the Oklahoma City skyline.

Tigar, protesting that Nichols had no role in the bombing, said he did not care to examine evidence at the blast site. “I’m not going into the Murrah building,” the lawyer said. “My client had nothing to do with the Murrah building.”

Tigar attacked several allegations in a federal affidavit unsealed last week against Nichols. He said that a fuel meter found at the Nichols home was broken and therefore could not have been used to measure the correct amount of diesel fuel needed to make a bomb with the ammonium nitrate.

And, he said, large amounts of ammonium nitrate at Nichols’ home was used as farm fertilizer. The government, however, argued that Nichols lived in town and was not a farmer.

Tigar, a University of Texas law professor who has handled many high-profile criminal cases, also elaborated on Nichols’ statement to the FBI that he had driven back from Oklahoma City with McVeigh three days before the bombing.

The defense lawyer said that McVeigh had telephoned Nichols in Herington and asked him to drive to Oklahoma City to pick him up so he could deliver a television set to Nichols’ son, Joshua, who was staying with his father.

Tigar said that McVeigh told Nichols to “drive around 8th Street and look for me” in downtown Oklahoma City. After Nichols found McVeigh, the attorney said, the two men drove past the Murrah building on 5th Street before heading back to Kansas.

On the day of the bombing, according to Tigar, Nichols was on his front porch making home repairs. Prosecutor Merrick Garland did not challenge the statement, acknowledging that phone records indicate Nichols was home at the time of the 9:02 a.m. blast.

Nichols learned about the bombing the next day, Tigar said, when he went to a cable television company near his home to inquire about service for his son’s television set. Nichols surrendered the next day, after hearing that McVeigh had been arrested in Perry, Okla.

“He comes in on his own,” Tigar said of Nichols. “This young man sits in the police station. He invites them to search his house and he tells them what’s there.”

But FBI Agent Errol Myers of Oklahoma City, the only witness to testify at the hearing, made statements that suggest either deeper involvement by Nichols in the alleged conspiracy or at least an attempt to conceal his past actions.

Myers testified that two safe-deposit box keys were found hidden in a 55-gallon drum inside Nichols’ garage, although the agent did not say what the boxes held.

Myers said that the FBI has determined that a substance found on the ground at a state fishing lake north of Herington tested positive for fuel oil. Authorities have said that witnesses spotted a Ryder truck and Nichols’ blue pickup truck at the lake before the bombing.

The FBI agent also said that it would be hard for just one person to mix the fuel oil with fertilizer and then shovel it into a large rental truck. “You could do it,” Myers said. “But it would be difficult.”

Tigar suggested that Nichols bought the fuel oil and fertilizer just as any Kansas farmer would to prepare his pastures or to build small explosive devices to drain his fields.

The defense lawyer used the analogy of someone selling sugar for what he believes would be used for legitimate purposes, such as to sweeten iced tea or coffee. “It’s not a crime,” Tigar said, “even if it turns out the person you’re selling the sugar to is making whiskey.”

Tigar pointed out that Nichols had surrendered voluntarily. He declared: “The guilty flee when no man pursueth. But the righteous are as bold as a lion.”

Myers, however, testified that FBI agents “were under the impression that he was about to leave town.” And Garland, the prosecutor, told the judge: “He came in voluntarily after he knew he was being looked for.”