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SHOOT-OUT AT RUBY RIDGE The Randy Weaver Trial n June 15, in Boise, Idaho, the Randy Weaver case was sent to the jury. The Case is an example of a government gone mad, a government that deployed more than 400 FBI agents and US marshals to a remote Idaho mountaintop to "get Randy Weaver". Randy Weaver, his wife Vicki, their four children, and friend Kevin Harris have now become a cause céltbre among '‘anti-government/anti-establishment' political networks throughout the West. It began last August 21, when US marshals initiated a shoot-out with the Weavers and Kevin Harris near Bonner's Ferry, Idaho. During the assault against the Weaver household, the federal agents managed to murder the Weavers' 14-year-old son, shooting him in the back as he ran toward his home, assassinated Vicki Weaver as she stood in her doorway with her baby in her arms, wounded Randy Weaver and Kevin Harris, and even killed the Weavers’ dog, with a shot in the back as it was running away. After an 11-day siege, Weaver, Harris, and the surviving children surrendered to the FBI, after former presidential candidate Lt. Col. (Retired) Bo Gritz intervened and helped to negotiate the surrender. If it had not been for Gritz's personal intervention, the FBI would have undoubtedly ensured that there would have been no live witnesses to testify in court. The assault on the Weavers by the FBI and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF) was run by the same FBI “Hostage Rescue Team” that carried out the assault and murder against the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas earlier this year. The government learned several lessons in the Weaver siege that were applied in Waco, among them not let- ting the media get too close, destroying ali the evidence, and killing everyone possible, i.e., not leaving any evidence on the scene that could point to government misconduct. The federal marshals had had the Weaver home, located in an isolated area of northern Idaho, under surveillance for 18 months, attempting to arrest Weaver on a warrant that charged him with failure to appear on a 1990 weapons charge for illegally selling two sawed-off shotguns to a BATF undercover informant. Yet another example of government versus the people. Yet another example of government versus the people. As revealed in court testimony, this original charge was a complete set-up by the BATF, using a government-paid provocateur named Kenneth Fadeley, who is now finding himself a new identity under the Federal Wimess Protection Program. Fadeley is a self-described spy for the BATF who was posing as a firearms dealer and using the alias Gus Magiosono. According to Weaver's attorney, Chuck Peterson, Fadeley was so determined to set Weaver up, that he even pointed out where to cut on the barrel of the shotgun, to ensure that Weaver cut it short enough to qualify it as "sawed-off", and therefore as an illegal weapon. Herb Byerly, a BATF agent in Spokane who supervised Fadeley, testified that after two sawed-off shotguns were sold to the informant, allegedly by Weaver, Byerly and another agent confronted Weaver with the evidence, to try to coerce him into becoming their agent. Despite the threat of prosecution, Weaver angrily refused to become a "snitch". So, he was arrested on January 17, 1991, at the same cabin which in 1992 would become the scene of the deadly shoot-out. The set-up continued. Weaver was ordered to appear for trial on February 19, 1991. After Weaver had left the courthouse, the trial date was changed to February 20. Then a court official supposedly made a mistake and notified Weaver that the trial date was March 20. When Weaver did not appear on February 20 for the trial, a federal judge issued a bench warrant for his arrest for failing to appear. Even after authorities discovered their error, Weaver was indicted for failing to appear. Maurice Ellsworth, US Attorney for Idaho, testi- fied that after Weaver failed to show up for the February 20 trial, he directed his staff to obtain the indictment, even though he knew a court officer had told Weaver in a letter that the trial would begin March 20. by Patrick Ruckert Extracted from Executive Intelligence Review June 25, 1993 22¢NEXUS THE GOVERNMENT SET UP WEAVER OCTOBER - NOVEMBER 1993