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Tell or else Journalists face jail for Olympics bombing story
Posted: Friday June 04, 1999 04:01 PM
ATLANTA (Reuters) -- Two Atlanta newspaper reporters have been ordered jailed for refusing to divulge the source of their story that a security guard was the prime suspect in the 1996 Summer Olympics bombing, but they remained free on Friday pending an appeal. Fulton County State Court Judge John Mather on Thursday ordered Atlanta Journal-Constitution journalists Kathy Scruggs and Ron Martz jailed on contempt charges for refusing to divulge the identities of sources who told them that the guard, Richard Jewell, was the FBI's main suspect in the July 27, 1996, blast that killed one woman and injured 111 people. The order was immediately blocked when Peter Canfield, an attorney for the newspaper, filed a notice of appeal. Atlanta attorney Lin Wood, representing Jewell in a lawsuit against the Journal-Constitution, was quoted by the newspaper on Friday as saying, "The judge has ruled correctly and, really, this was the only thing he could do." The judge ordered the reporters to identify their sources in April 1998 and on two subsequent occasions. They refused. Georgia law protects reporters from naming sources in some instances, but Mather ruled the law did not apply when the reporters were faced with a lawsuit. The newspaper's lawyer said he believed the Georgia Court of Appeals would vindicate the reporters. "We're confident that the appellate courts will find this order unnecessary and that this whole case should have been thrown out a long time ago," Canfield said. Jewell, initially hailed as a hero whose actions reduced the death toll from the bombing at Centennial Olympic Park in Atlanta, days later was identified by the Atlanta-Constitution and other news organizations as the FBI's chief suspect in the attack. Though Jewell was questioned by agents, his car and residence searched and his every move monitored for days by police and journalists, Jewell was never charged. He eventually received an extremely rare written apology from the U.S. Justice Department. His lawyer told Reuters in 1998 that the accusation still haunted Jewell. Jewell announced his intention to sue news organizations and settled out-of-court with several for undisclosed sums. The FBI has said it now believes Eric Rudolph, a suspect in the January 1998 bombing of an Alabama abortion clinic, planted the Olympics bomb. A $1 million reward was posted for Rudolph's capture.
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