Man Says His Olympic Photo Shows Spectator With Knapsack

A man who took pictures in Centennial Olympic Park hours before the fatal bombing says he gave the FBI one photograph of a spectator wearing a green military-style backpack, similar to the one that held the bomb.

Prompted by the agency’s request for tips Monday, Ted Miltiades said he remembered snapping photos about 6 1/2 hours before a 40-pound pipe bomb exploded.

FBI agents had said a military-style knapsack carrying the pipe bomb was placed under a bench near a Greek statue commemorating the 100th anniversary of the modern Olympics.

Miltiades said he remembered taking a picture of the statue “because I’m Greek.”

“I just pulled [the photos] out and looked at them and I noticed the man with the backpack,” the 35-year-old Atlanta man said.

The photograph he gave the FBI shows the back of a white man of medium height and shoulder-length brown hair wearing white or khaki shorts, a dark T-shirt and a baseball cap.

Miltiades was one of more than 1,000 people who called an FBI hotline on the first day it was set up. The agency is offering a $500,000 reward for information leading to the bomber.

An FBI agent picked up the photo within minutes after Miltiades called the hotline. He later found the negative and took it to the FBI on Wednesday.

FBI spokesman Jay Spadafore declined comment on Miltiades or the photograph. He said the agency had no plans to release any photos.

As of 5 p.m. EST Wednesday, the FBI had received 1,500 calls to the hotline and had referred 1,000 for further review or investigation, FBI spokeswoman Susan Lloyd said Wednesday.

The agency also created a page on the World Wide Web this week with photos and illustrations of the bomb site and the backpack, a recording of the 911 call and the hotline number.

“It’s been very heavy,” Spadafore said of the number of hits the page had generated, “so heavy that some callers can’t get through so we tell them to keep on trying.”

The FBI’s Web page on the Olympic bombing can be found at: www.fbi.gov/centbom/centbom.htm.