Eric Robert Rudolph

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Eric Robert Rudolph (1966–) is an American Christian terrorist responsible for a series of bombings in the southern United States from 1996 to 1998, most notably the Atlanta Centennial Olympic Park bombing in 1996 which killed two people.[1] Along with the Olympic Park bombing, he bombed a lesbian bar and two abortion clinics.[2]

Until Rudolph made a statement claiming a motive for the 1996 Olympic bombing, security guard Richard Jewell was falsely accused of planting the bombs himself, when in fact he's the reason that the bombing didn't have a higher bodycount.[3]

The FBI named Rudolph a suspect in 1998 and added him to the Most Wanted Fugitives list and captured Rudolph in 2003. White nationalists considered Rudolph to be a hero.[4] When he was young, Rudolph's mom brought him during her visits to The Church Of Jesus Christ-Christian (a spin-off group of the Aryan Nations) which subscribed to the Christian Identity movement.[5] Christian Identity ideology considers people of white European ancestry "God's chosen people" and people of all other races condemned to hell. However, Rudolph stated that his motivation for the bombing was religious and political, not racial. He believed abortion was a sin, and also believed in the Homosexual Agenda (the "Gay celebrities want to make being gay accepted!" version). He also believed the Olympics was a plot by corporations to manipulate the world into celebrating socialism.[6]

Rudolph was given multiple life sentences and has been incarcerated in the maximum security Supermax federal prison since 2005.

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