DALLAS, March 31 (Reuters) - A lawsuit charging the FBI with using excessive force that contributed to the bloody end of the 1993 Branch Davidian siege was delayed Friday for the third time in eight months.
A federal judge in Waco ordered the start of the civil trial pushed back from May 15 to June 19 to give court-appointed experts time to analyse the results of an elaborate field test aimed at showing whether FBI agents shot at sect members in the last hour of the siege.
About 80 sect members died as their central Texas compound burned April 19, 1993, after the FBI tried to end a 51-day siege by pouring tear gas into the buildings.
Relatives of the victims filed the wrongful death lawsuit, charging federal agents with contributing to the death toll by shooting at sect members to keep them from fleeing the burning compound and blocking fire trucks from fighting the flames.
Attorney General Janet Reno and the FBI have long denied agents fired on escaping sect members or kept firefighters away.
The claims of FBI gunfire at Waco are based in part on flashes of light recorded by Forward Looking Infrared (FLIR) videotape from government aircraft.
The plaintiffs say the tape captured muzzle flashes from FBI guns, while government lawyers contend the lights are just the sun glinting off pools of water and broken glass and metal.
On court orders, the government March 19 recreated the scene at a remote gun range on the central Texas army base Ft Hood, filming gun shots and reflections from pools and glass with the same airborne infrared video system.
But U.S. District Judge William Smith Friday said the analyses of those tests by court-appointed experts, British company Vector Data Systems Ltd. is not expected to be done until at least May 8.
``A trial date of May 15 will not allow the parties or the Court sufficient time to assess the results of that report prior to trial,'' the judge wrote in his postponement order.
Judge Smith ruled last July that the lawsuit could go to trial and initially set a date of October 18. It was put off to May 1 after Branch Davidian lawyers protested they would not have enough time to go through mountains of documents, photographs and other evidence the government was ordered to hand over.
The trial date then slipped back to mid-May after the court ordered the Ft Hood test.

WASHINGTON (AP) - The federal judge presiding over the Branch Davidians' wrongful-death lawsuit against the government on Friday delayed the trial's start by a month, saying court-appointed experts need more time to analyze results from a re-enactment of the siege's deadly end.
U.S. District Judge Walter Smith of Waco, Texas, moved the start date from May 15 to June 19.
Vector Data Systems, the court-appointed expert examining results from the re-enactment, won't have its report ready until May 8 at the earliest, Smith said. The analysis initially had been expected by mid-April.
The trial delay elicited no complaints.
``I think all parties agree that a few more weeks were necessary in order to complete discovery and to respond if necessary to the Vector report when that comes out,'' said Michael Bradford, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Texas who is one of the government's lead lawyers.
James Brannon, a lawyer for some of the plaintiffs, agreed the delay makes little difference, particularly since the deadline to interview most witnesses was reached Friday. ``It doesn't matter if it's May 15th or June 19th,'' he said.
The Vector experts are examining results from a field test designed to determine the answer to a question at the heart of the Davidians' lawsuit, congressional inquiries and the investigation by the Waco special counsel: Did government agents fire shots at the end of the siege? During the March 19 demonstration, weapons similar to those carried by Branch Davidians and federal agents were fired while infrared cameras mounted on two aircraft recorded the action. Experts for the court, the government and the plaintiffs are comparing that test footage to aerial infrared videos recorded by the FBI during the actual encounter on April 19, 1993.
The plaintiffs contend rapid-fire bursts of light captured on the FBI's 1993 recordings represent gunfire from government positions into the Branch Davidians' burning building in the last hour of the 51-day siege.
The government insists its agents, who were being shot at by the sect members, did not return fire. Federal officials maintain the sect members engineered their own deaths.

The federal wrongful-death case arising from the Branch Davidian siege will be delayed until mid-June to allow more time to study results from a field test aimed at determining whether government agents fired at the end of the 1993 incident, sources said Thursday.
U.S. District Judge Walter S. Smith also indicated that he will hold a hearing in April to determine whether the government should be fined for what the sect's lawyers allege is a pattern of mishandling or withholding critical evidence from the incident, sources close to the case said.
Government lawyers have called those charges baseless, but officials concede that the judge's decision to call a full hearing in Waco on April 24 sets the stage for a rare round of public pretrial testimony from government officials involved in the 1993 tragedy and its aftermath.
The judge's decision to postpone the start of the trial from mid-May to June 19 was due in large part to indications from the court's scientific experts that their final report on the March 19 infrared test will not be completed until early May, sources said.
Both sides had hoped to hear preliminary findings this week from Vector Data Systems Ltd., the court's expert, and Judge Smith indicated in an order issued just after the test that he expected the British-based firm to submit its final report within 30 days.
But both sides have said that they believe the firm may be experiencing difficulties similar to those that their infrared experts have faced in analyzing digitally computerized copies of the test data.
Lawyers for the government and the sect filed a joint motion last week seeking access to the original infrared video recordings made at a remote Fort Hood firing range. Their motion stated that significant data from the original test video recordings appeared to have been lost when they were copied into compressed digital files.
Officials said they expected to obtain better, videotaped copies of the original test recordings within the next few days from the U.S. District Court in Waco, where they were transferred after the Fort Hood experiment.
The test involved firing weapons like those carried by both sides in the 1993 standoff and maneuvering with personnel and armored vehicles on the ground while two airborne forward-looking-infrared or FLIR, cameras recorded overhead.
The test was designed to provide data for comparison to an infrared videotape taken from an FBI airplane on April 19, 1993. Repeated white blips of light are visible in the last hour of that recording, made on the morning that FBI agents tried to end a 51-day standoff by bashing the sect's flimsy building and spraying in tear gas.
Lawyers and experts for the sect have alleged that the flashes could have been caused only by government gunfire, but government lawyers and experts have long insisted that no one on the government's side fired a single shot that day.
More than 80 Davidians died amid the fire that erupted just after noon on April 19. Lawyers for the sect have alleged that government gunfire kept many of them, including innocent women and children, from escaping.
Government lawyers have sharply disputed that, contending that the only gunfire that day came from Davidians and that the sect alone caused the tragic ending by setting its home afire.
But lawyers for the sect have argued that key evidence that the government has used to bolster their account of what happened in Waco can't be trusted. They have complained in a series of increasingly caustic motions that the government has consistently ignored court discovery deadlines and has then sent them copies of key photos and audio and video recordings that have been altered or tampered with.
The government's lawyers say they have turned over all evidence requested by the sect's lawyers as fast as possible.
The judge's decision to hold a hearing in April means that government officials involved in the siege will be called to answer those allegations as well as charges that key photographs and other evidence are missing.
"It should be noted that the tapes and photographs at issue have been made [available] to various individuals and entities during the course of the . . ... [1994 Davidian] criminal trial, congressional hearings and investigations in 1993, 1995, 1999 and the OSC [office of special counsel] investigation. It may be impossible, ultimately, to locate all originals or confirm whether the available tapes are in fact originals" Justice Department lawyer Marie Hagen wrote in a March 24 motion.
Government lawyers also hinted at the defense they may offer in the upcoming sanctions hearing, suggesting that some of what is now apparently missing might have been misplaced as FBI officials responded to repeated requests for information from congressional investigators, the courts and the office of Waco special counsel John C. Danforth.
"It should be noted that the tapes and photographs at issue have been made to various individuals and entities during the course of the ... [1994 Davidian] criminal trial, congressional hearings and investigations in 1993, 1995, 1999 and the OSC [office of special counsel] investigation. It may be impossible, ultimately, to locate all originals or confirm whether the available tapes are in fact originals" Justice Department lawyer Marie Hagen wrote in a March 24 motion.
But Michael Caddell, lead lawyer for the sect, has said that the volume of missing or altered evidence from April 19 is too great to be coincidental. He has argued that what he and his investigators and experts have already identified as missing or altered from the final day of the standoff suggests a calculated effort to sanitize anything that might reflect badly on the government or the FBI.

The office of Special Counsel John Danforth called an FBI expert to testify before a grand jury in St. Louis last week after the man said he wanted to be subpoenaed before answering any more questions about Waco, federal officials said Wednesday.
The expert was Monty Jett, who supervised the reloading of canisters that were used to insert tear gas into the Branch Davidian complex during the government's attempt to roust the Davidians on April 19, 1993. Jett, who works at FBI offices in Quantico, Va., was unavailable for comment Wednesday. Danforth's office refused to comment.
Federal sources said Jett was the first FBI agent involved with Waco to be brought before a grand jury. In the past, agents have appeared voluntarily to answer questions posed by Danforth's investigators and lawyers at the special counsel's offices at 200 North Broadway.
Jett was questioned before the grand jury for slightly more than an hour on March 21, sources said. The day before, he was questioned by Danforth's staff from about 10 a.m. until 3:30 p.m.
The sources said there was no indication that Jett had done anything wrong or that the grand jury was focusing on Waco.
"He wanted to be interviewed only as a result of a subpoena," said one federal official who spoke on the condition he would not be named. Jett's reluctance to testify without the subpoena may have been a backlash against the extended questioning, the official added.
FBI agents who have been questioned at Danforth's offices before have described exhausting, daylong sessions. Some agents have also complained about answering questions without the benefit of legal advice. By appearing before a grand jury, Jett would be entitled to legal representation from the government, one official said.
Congressional investigators questioned Jett for two days earlier this month. He was also deposed on Monday by lawyers who represent some of the surviving relatives of Branch Davidians who died during the government's siege. The survivors have filed a wrongful death suit against the government.
During the last day of the government's siege, Jett played a supporting role in the plan to use tear gas to force the Davidians out of their complex. He supervised the recharging of the gas canisters mounted on converted tanks. Compressed gas was delivered through the tanks' booms that punched holes in the walls of the sect's complex.
CS gas is a riot control agent that irritates the skin and causes tearing, tightness of the chest and shortness of breath. Prolonged exposure can cause burns and blistering. About 80 people died during the siege-some from gunshots and others from the effects of a fire that destroyed the complex.
In another development Wednesday, FBI Director Louis Freeh said he was grateful that agent Lon Horiuchi had been dismissed as a defendant in the wrongful death case.
The suit alleged that Hourichi, a sniper on the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team, had fired on the complex. Lawyers for the sect's survivors moved to dismiss him as a defendant because a comparison of weapons with shell casings from Hourichi's sniper post had eliminated him as a shooter. Judge Walter Smith Jr. granted the motion to dismiss Hourichi on Tuesday.
"This lifts a heavy burden both he and his family have had to endure for many years," Freeh said.

The office of special counsel John C. Danforth has called an FBI tear gas expert involved in the Branch Davidian siege to testify before a federal grand jury in St. Louis, according to federal officials and lawyers involved in a civil case arising from the 1993 standoff.
The disclosure was made as lawyers for the sect questioned U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno under oath Tuesday about whether the FBI commanders exceeded their authority in their handling of the final tank-and-tear-gas assault on the sect's embattled home near Waco.
Lead Davidian lawyer Michael Caddell of Houston said after the two-hour deposition that he believed that Ms. Reno was "less than candid" in answering questions about whether the FBI commanders had decided without authorization to begin demolishing the compound.
He told reporters that Ms. Reno said she believed that the massive damage inflicted by government tanks to the back side of the sect's building was not a planned demolition. Instead, she testified, the destruction was only collateral damage caused by the FBI's efforts to get tear gas into the building.
"The problem is that she's testified before Congress and has said there that there wasn't demolition," Mr. Caddell said. "We finally got her to admit that demolition of the building absent some emergency would have required communication to the FBI's leadership, and that wasn't done."
U.S. account
U.S. Attorney Michael Bradford of Beaumont, one of the government's lead lawyers in the Waco civil case, disputed what he termed Mr. Caddell's "interpretation" of the attorney general's sworn account.
"We believe her testimony was candid and forthcoming and in fact, was consistent with her testimony that she's given in the past," said Mr. Bradford, one of five government lawyers who attended the deposition at the Justice Department in Washington. He declined to disclose details of her testimony, citing a judge's order barring public disclosure of all depositions in the Waco case for 30 days after they occur.
In a previous round of depositions on Monday, Mr. Caddell and another lawyer for the sect said, a Quantico, Va.-based FBI technician responsible for maintaining the bureau's supplies of tear gas and other chemical agents acknowledged that he was questioned for more than an hour on March 21 before a federal grand jury.
A spokesperson for Mr. Danforth's office declined to comment on the matter Tuesday. The technician could not be reached for comment.
But other federal officials familiar with ongoing Davidian inquiries said they believe that the FBI technician is the first bureau employee to be summoned to a grand jury since Mr. Danforth began his inquiry last fall. Lawyers for the sect and others declined to identify the employee Tuesday, citing a protective order in the sect's wrongful death lawsuit barring disclosure of identifying information about most government employees involved in the 1993 standoff.
It remains unclear whether the federal grand jury that heard the technician's testimony is a regularly scheduled panel or was specially called to consider evidence of possible criminal violations arising from the Davidian inquiry. Federal prosecutors frequently use grand jury subpoenas to compel testimony from reluctant or evasive witnesses.
Officials in Washington said they believed the technician was asked to testify before the federal grand jury after refusing to speak with Mr. Danforth's investigators unless compelled by subpoena. One federal official said the technician demanded a subpoena after being subjected to two days of intense grilling by congressional investigators re-examining the Waco incident.
Looking for details
James Brannon of Houston, one of several lawyers representing families of sect members in the wrongful death lawsuit, said the technician refused to divulge details about his grand jury appearance during his Monday deposition. Mr. Brannon said the technician did acknowledge, however, that he appeared before the grand jury one day after he was questioned for more than six hours by Mr. Danforth's investigators.
Mr. Danforth's office has summoned dozens of FBI agents involved in the Waco siege for what have been described as lengthy and often grueling interviews. His investigators asked a former Army special forces soldier to submit to a polygraph examination this year after his account of his whereabouts during the siege conflicted with another soldier's.
Mr. Danforth sought full prosecutorial authority before accepting Ms. Reno's appointment last September to re-examine the government's actions against the Branch Davidians.
A recently disclosed budget request sent by Mr. Danforth's office to the Justice Department officials last December stated that his inquiry would resolve "whether any government employee or agent . . . made false or misleading statements, allowed other to make such statements, or withheld evidence or information" about what happened on April 19, 1993, the day that the sect's compound burned.
More than 80 sect members died when their home caught fire about six hours after the FBI began its tear gas assault. Government officials have long maintained that sect members set the fire and that their agents bore nor responsibility for the tragedy.
But lawyers for the sect have alleged in the lawsuit that government missteps and wrongdoing were at least partially responsible for the massive loss of life.
Mr. Danforth was brought in as special counsel after FBI officials acknowledged that they had used pyrotechnic tear gas grenades during the assault that ended the 51-day standoff. Ms. Reno had expressly banned the use of anything capable of sparking a fire during that final FBI assault, and she and FBI officials had previously insisted for years that no such devices were used by anyone on the government's side.
The government's embarrassing about-face came after a former senior FBI official said last August that at least one pyrotechnic tear gas grenade had been fired by FBI agents on April 19.
Some federal investigators have recently questioned whether more of the pyrotechnic gas grenades were used by the FBI during their final tear gas assault. FBI agents have testified in recent depositions that at least two of their Bradley armored fighting vehicles were each stocked with 10 of the pyrotechnic gas devices.
Questions raised
A recent report by the Texas Rangers also has suggested that one spent pyrotechnic gas grenade was fired from an area that FBI agents previously denied such devices were used. That spent device was photographed by a Texas Department of Public Safety photographer just after the siege ended but then disappeared.
The testimony of the FBI technician may not fully resolve such questions. He indicated that he was aware that pyrotechnic tear-gas grenades were brought to the siege, but he was not involved in their deployment or use, said a federal official familiar with his account. He has said that he was assigned solely to stock and resupply tanks used to spray nonpyrotechnic tear gas into the compound on April 19, a federal official said.
Mr. Caddell and Mr. Brannon said that Ms. Reno acknowledged in her Tuesday deposition that the plan she approved for gassing the compound did not authorize the use of such pyrotechnic tear gas or "flash-bang" distraction devices. A number of spent flash-bang devices, which explode and can cause fires, were found in the wreckage of the sect's home, but government officials have insisted that none were fired on April 19.
FBI agents fired flash-bang grenades earlier in the standoff, and agents from the federal bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms used at least one in the botched raid that began the 1993 standoff.
Mr. Caddell said Ms. Reno testified Tuesday that she was never told that the FBI's Waco commanders did not plan to try to fight a fire if one broke out during their tear-gas operation.
He said the attorney general also acknowledged that she was never told about a Florida company's offer to provide Czech-made, remotely controlled armored fire-fighting equipment for use in Waco. Mr. Caddell said the former U.S. distributor of the Czech equipment said he was repeatedly rebuffed when he tried to offer FBI officials free use of the equipment during the 1993 siege.
Mr. Caddell and other lawyers for the sect have said they hoped to use Ms. Reno's testimony to support their arguments for reinstating the FBI's Waco commanders as individual defendants in the Davidian's wrongful death lawsuit. The Waco federal judge hearing the lawsuit dismissed former FBI agents Jeffrey Jamar and Richard Rogers as defendants last summer, citing federal limits on civil lawsuits against federal employees or agencies.

Attorney General Janet Reno testified Tuesday that she never gave tank-driving FBI agents permission to demolish the Branch Davidians' complex at Waco in 1993, lawyers said.
But Reno, who was questioned for about two hours by lawyers for Branch Davidian survivors, would not admit that the destruction the tanks caused amounted to demolition of the complex, known as Mount Carmel.
"No one will concede that what happened on April 19th was the demolition of Mount Carmel," said Mike Caddell, one of the lawyers who questioned Reno. "They would all like to characterize the damage of the building as incidental to the tear gas insertion."
Caddell also quoted Reno as saying the FBI commanders on the scene could have decided to demolish the building on their own if an emergency existed and lives were in danger. But she said that she knew of no situation that called for the building to be demolished.
Caddell and Jim Brannon, another plaintiffs' lawyer, deposed Reno in advance of the May 15 trial of their wrongful-death suit against the government. The suit contends that the government's handling of the siege on the complex played a role in the deaths of about 80 people who died from fire and gunshots.
"I think she was evasive on the demolition issue," Caddell said in an interview after the deposition. "She went to great lengths to avoid giving a straight answer on the issue of did they have authority to demolish the building or not."
U.S. attorney Mike Bradford said Reno was "forthcoming and candid" in her answers to the questions. He said her testimony was consistent with what she had told Congress in the past.
Reno was questioned because she approved the FBI's plan to use converted tanks to insert tear gas in an attempt to evict the Davidians. The tanks were supposed to get the tear gas into the building using "ferret" rounds fired from shotguns and using booms attached to the tanks to pump the gas through windows. But five hours into the tear gassing plan, the tanks began ramming the building.
Caddell said Reno's testimony and that of other FBI leaders was in "sharp contradiction" with that of two on-scene FBI commanders: Jeff Jamar, the special agent in charge of the operation, and Richard Rogers, the head of the FBI's hostage rescue team. Caddell said Jamar and Rogers believed they had the "implied authority" to tear down the building and to use pyrotechnic military rounds and "flashbang" explosive devices in the final assault plan.
One point of the suit has been that demolishing the building could have contributed to some of the deaths of the Davidians. They may have been afraid of coming out because of the tank assault, or exits could have been blocked by debris. The tank-and-tear-gas assault could also have contributed to the start of the fire that finally destroyed the complex.
Caddell has pointed out that the tank that repeatedly rammed into the rear of the complex and destroyed its gymnasium did not have the equipment to insert gas. He also said the agents' goal was to destroy the building because later attempts to commend the agents for their performance said their mission was to demolish the structure.
Bradford said the deposition had included a "lengthy discussion" on the issue of what authority Jamar and Rogers had, but Bradford would not discuss it.
"I think the deposition will speak for itself as far as her statements and position," Bradford said.
Caddell also said Reno testified that no one ever told her there would be no plan to fight a fire should one develop. "She assumed there would be an adequate fire-fighting plan," Caddell said.

WACO, Texas (AP) - A federal judge presiding over a lawsuit against the government for wrongful death in the 1993 Branch Davidian siege has granted a plaintiffs' request to dismiss their case against an FBI sharpshooter.
U.S. District Judge Walter Smith, in a brief order filed Tuesday, said the motion to dismiss the case against FBI sharpshooter Lon Horiuchi because of insufficient evidence ``has merit and should be granted.''
Horiuchi was the only named defendant in the Davidians' civil lawsuit, scheduled for trial in mid-May.
Houston attorney Michael Caddell, the lead counsel for most of the Branch Davidian plaintiffs, said a forensic analysis of spent shell casings found at the sniper outpost Horiuchi's team occupied indicate ATF agents ``most likely'' fired the bullets during the initial Feb. 28, 1993, gun battle that sparked the 51-day siege - not Horiuchi or his FBI colleagues.
But another group of Davidians, represented by former Attorney General Ramsey Clark, disagreed with Caddell's request, saying in a motion filed Monday that it would be ``premature'' to dismiss Horiuchi, who gained notoriety in 1992 when he killed the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver during the standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho.
``The facts are not fully known and are being developed,'' the motion says, noting that the government's conduct at Waco remains under ``intense investigation.''
Clark could not be reached for Tuesday for comment.
Caddell has stressed that the move to dismiss the claims against Horiuchi doesn't diminish the plaintiffs' view that other FBI agents directed gunfire at the Branch Davidians' retreat during the standoff's final, deadly hours.
``This in no way undermines or alters our strong belief that government agents, almost certainly (FBI Hostage Rescue Team) members, directed gunfire at the back of Mount Carmel, from positions that were not observable by the press or the FBI leadership in Washington,'' he said.
Of Smith's ruling, Justice Department spokesman Myron Marlin said: ``It's another due element in the case with which we are pleased.''
Just weeks ago, Horiuchi's government lawyers filed a motion saying there is not a ``shred of evidence'' that he fired his weapon on April 19.
Federal officials insist no government personnel, civilian or military, fired shots in the waning hours of the Waco siege, when the FBI initiated a tank-and-tear gas operation designed to flush the Davidians from their retreat.
Davidian leader David Koresh and some 80 followers died during the inferno that consumed the compound several hours into the tear-gassing operation. Some died from the fire, others from gunshot wounds that federal authorities say the Davidians inflicted.
The Davidian plaintiffs contend FBI infrared surveillance footage taken April 19 captured bursts of light that can be nothing but muzzle blasts directed from government positions into the burning building - a contention the government denies.
In Washington on Tuesday, Caddell said Attorney General Janet Reno testified that she never gave approval for tanks to demolish the Davidians compound and didn't believe the FBI intentionally did so.
After emerging from the rare deposition of an attorney general, Caddell said Reno was less than forthcoming in discussing whether the FBI intended to dismantle the complex during its tear-gassing operation - an interpretation rejected by Reno's aides.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawyers representing family members of the Branch Davidians accused Attorney General Janet Reno of being less than candid during a portion of her deposition Tuesday about the 1993 siege in Waco, but the Justice Department swiftly denied the accusation.
Emerging from two hours of questioning Reno in her office, Davidians' attorney Michael Caddell told reporters that the atmosphere of the deposition was courteous but Reno was less than candid on the issue of the demolition of the compound.
``I really think the only issue where we felt she was less than candid was on the demolition issue,'' Caddell said, referring to whether there were orders from any level of the government to demolish the compound.
About 80 Branch Davidians died when their central Texas compound erupted in flames April 19, 1993, during an FBI assault to end a 51-day siege that began with the attempted arrest of sect leader David Koresh on federal weapons charges.
``She is convinced that what was happening was incidental to the tear gas insertion process but I think it's clear that she never gave approval for demolition, if in fact that's what happened,'' said Caddell, who has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the government.
U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford, one of the government's lead lawyers in the case who was present at the deposition, said he disagreed with Caddell's interpretation of Reno's testimony.
``We believe she was forthright, candid and answered all of the questions,'' Bradford told reporters. ``We believe it was consistent with her past testimony.''
Bradford said he could not go into the specifics of Reno's testimony about the demolition of the building or about any other topic, because the judge in the case has ordered the deposition be kept under seal for 30 days.
He said the lawyers for the Branch Davidians gave no indication that they planned to call Reno as a witness at the trial, scheduled to start May 15 in Waco.