ATLANTA -- Serial bomber Eric Rudolph apologised yesterday to the victims of a deadly bomb he exploded at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, then sat calmly as a judge jailed him for life.
Rudolph said he had not intended to harm bystanders but only to embarrass the US Government when he planted a powerful nail bomb in Centennial Olympic Park on July 27, 1996. The explosion killed a woman and injured more than 100 people.
"I sincerely hoped to achieve my objectives without harming innocent civilians," Rudolph said.
"I would do anything to take back that night. To these victims, I apologise," Rudolph told a court packed with those wounded in the Olympic bombing and two other blasts at an abortion clinic and a gay club.
The 38-year-old will not be eligible for parole.
Rudolph agreed to plead guilty to the three Atlanta explosions and a 1998 abortion clinic bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, in a bargain to avoid the death penalty.
Federal prosecutors called him a terrorist.
"Your twisted hatred extinguished a bright innocent flame," said John Hawthorne, whose wife, Alice, was killed in the Olympic bombing. "You are a very small man. Big bomb, but you are still a small man." Despite showing remorse, the former soldier insisted he was right to wage his own personal war against abortion clinics and the US Government, which he said was protecting them.
The Olympic bombing was designed to "confound, anger and embarrass the Washington Government in the eyes of the world for its abominable sanctioning of abortion on demand," Rudolph said.
Robert Sanderson, an off-duty police officer, was killed in the explosion at the New Woman All Women Health Care clinic in Birmingham in 1998.
Emily Lyons, a nurse at the same clinic, was blinded and disfigured.
The bombs detonated at the Sandy Springs abortion clinic and the Otherside Lounge in 1997 wounded about a dozen people.
