‘Monster’ Rudolph rails against abortion

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (AP) — An unrepentant Eric Rudolph declared that abortion must be fought with “deadly force” as a judge sentenced him to life in prison yesterday and victims confronted him in court, calling him a cowardly “monster.”

Rudolph’s diatribe and the emotional statements of his victims were aired as he was sentenced under a plea deal that spared his life. He received two life terms without parole for the 1998 Birmingham abortion clinic bombing that killed an off-duty police officer and critically injured a nurse.

Next month, he is to receive two more life terms for the deadly 1996 Olympic Park bombing and other attacks in Atlanta.

“The full responsibility for this would have been the death sentence,” Emily Lyons, the nurse maimed by his bomb, told the court.

Felicia Sanderson, whose husband died in the explosion, said, “I want to tell you there is no punishment in my opinion great enough for Eric Rudolph. When Eric Rudolph leaves this earth and has to face final judgment, I’m going to leave the final judgment in God’s hand.”

Seated at the defense table, Rudolph nodded in agreement. When it was his turn to speak, Rudolph angrily lashed out at abortion and the women’s clinic that performs the procedure.

“What they did was participate in the murder of 50 children a week,” he said, shackled at the ankles and wearing a red jail uniform. “Abortion is murder, and because it is murder, I believe deadly force is needed to stop it.

“Children are disposed of at will,” he said, jabbing at the air in a long speech against abortion. “The state is no longer the protector of the innocents.”

When Mrs. Lyons spoke earlier, she said Rudolph was nothing but a coward.

“When it was your turn to face death, you weren’t so brave again,” Mrs. Lyons told the federal courtroom. “You want to see a monster, all you have to do is look in the mirror.”

She read her statement in a strong voice and occasionally looked across the aisle at Rudolph.

“It really doesn’t matter what you say because I will go back to my home and you will go back to jail. The clinics in town will still be open, and abortion will still be legal,” Mrs. Lyons said.

Rudolph, 38, pleaded guilty in April to setting off a remote-controlled bomb that maimed Mrs. Lyons and killed Officer Robert “Sande” Sanderson outside the New Woman All Women clinic on the morning of Jan. 29, 1998.

He also faces sentencing Aug. 22 in Atlanta for the 1996 Olympics bombing that killed one woman and injured more than 100, as well as 1997 bombings at an abortion clinic and a homosexual bar in Atlanta.

As the hearing began, U.S. District Judge C. Lynwood Smith Jr. ruled that any proceeds that Rudolph might receive from books or other projects must be used as restitution to his victims.

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