Separatist to Testify Before Panel on Fatal Idaho Siege

Randy Weaver will testify before a Senate committee even though it brings back “terrible memories” of how his wife and son were killed in the Idaho standoff with federal agents, he said.

“I’m doing it for Sam and Vicki,” he told the Des Moines Sunday Register. “That’s the only reason. And for everybody, really. We’re losing our freedoms. Somebody has to be held accountable. It’s scary.”

Shooting broke out near Weaver’s remote cabin in northern Idaho on Aug. 21, 1992, as U.S. marshals prepared to arrest him for failing to appear in court on a weapons charge. Weaver’s 14-year-old son, Sammy, and a deputy marshal were killed.

A day later, an FBI sniper fired a shot at Weaver’s cabin and killed his wife, Vicki, 43. The siege lasted 11 days.

Weaver and a friend were acquitted in the shooting of the marshal. Last week, the Justice Department announced it would pay Weaver and his three surviving children $3.1 million. They had sued for $200 million.

Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) said last week that he still plans to start the hearings Sept. 6, despite Justice Department concern that the session might impede criminal investigations.

Five top FBI officials have been suspended pending the outcomes of the investigations of an alleged cover-up involving controversial “shoot on sight” orders given to FBI snipers.

One of the five, Larry A. Potts, was promoted this year to FBI deputy director. But FBI Director Louis J. Freeh told Newsweek that he would not have promoted Potts “given the facts we have now.”

Freeh admitted that he promoted Potts because of their “long and close association,” the magazine reported in its Aug. 28 issue, out today. He also conceded that “it’s obvious there was a flawed investigation” and took “full responsibility” for the damage to the FBI’s image. Freeh said the allegations being investigated are shocking.

The standoff started after Weaver failed to show up in court on a weapons charge in 1991. He moved from Iowa to an isolated section of Idaho as he grew more distrustful of the government and sought to follow his white separatist views.