Steven Hatfill Quotes
I have had nothing to do in any way, shape or form with the mailing of these anthrax letters, and it is extremely wrong for anyone to contend or suggest that I have.
Hatfill, Steven. "Text of Hatfill Statement." The Washington Post, 11 Aug. 2002.
In 1920 in the midst of a wave of anarchist bombings, two men in Braintree, MA were murdered in an armed robbery. Vanzetti and another political anarchist, Ferdinando Nicola Sacco, were charged with the crime. While anarchy was a non-violent philosophy for many, there was another movement imported from Europe who used bombings as a method of terror and protest to achieve their political aims. Vanzetti and Sacco were of the former type with no criminal record whatsoever but both were considered politically undesirable and part of the terrorist anarchist movement that had been striking in a number of cities. Most Americans saw little difference between the anarchists and the communists although there were foes. These anarchist men were tried, convicted, and sentenced to death for the robbery and murders despite what was very flimsy and contradictory evidence. In Vanzetti’s case, the evidence against him was the fact that 2 of the shell casings from the crime scene were according to the police fired from the same type of Colt pistol that Vanzetti owned. However, 300,000 other people owned the same type of gun, and ballistics scientific evidence later showed that the shells could not have been fired from Vanzetti’s gun. The case became a worldwide cause celebre with politics, police and judicial misconduct. Even today, there is no clear evidence of either their guilt of innocence (although there was even less evidence against Vanzetti), However, the trial brought more publicity to the anarchist political philosophy than the defendants could have imagined. It also called the finality of capital punishment into question and caused major examination of the police, prosecutorial, judicial systems and even the defense attorneys. The two men were electrocuted on August 23, 1927 amid protests the world over. See {625975} and {600317} for example.
Steven Jay Hatfill is an American physician, pathologist and biological weapons expert. He became the subject of extensive media coverage beginning in mid-2002, when he was a suspect in the 2001 anthrax attacks. His home was repeatedly raided by the FBI, his phone was tapped, and he was extensively surveilled for more than two years; he was also fired from his job at Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC). At a news conference in August 2002, Hatfill denied that he had anything to do with the anthrax letters and said "irresponsible news media coverage based on government leaks" had "destroyed his reputation". He filed a lawsuit in 2003, accusing the FBI agents and Justice Department officials who led the criminal investigation of leaking information about him to the press in violation of the federal Privacy Act.
