Oklahoma bomber a step nearer execution

Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh has moved a step closer to execution.

He has allowed a deadline to pass without filing a request for clemency.

Under federal rules, McVeigh had one month after his May 16 execution date was set to ask the President to spare his life. The Bureau of Prisons set the execution date as January 16 after McVeigh dropped all appeals.

"The office of pardon attorney did not receive a petition from McVeigh," said Department of Justice spokeswoman Chris Watney after the midnight deadline.

McVeigh's lawyers said they were to discuss his decision. They drafted a clemency petition in case he wanted to submit it.

McVeigh, 32, is scheduled to die by lethal injection in the first execution by the federal government in 37 years.

The Gulf War veteran was convicted of murdering 168 people and injuring more than 500 in the April 1995 bombing of the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building.