In papers filed Monday in U.S. District Court here, the defense lawyers said the visit is necessary not just to preserve Nichols’s mental health, but is essential to help him defend himself against charges that he conspired in the worst terrorist attack ever on U.S. soil.

The lawyers charged that federal Bureau of Prisons officials are treating Nichols, who has no prior record and is being held without bond before trial, worse than it treats the convicted felons who are housed at El Reno. The felons get more than 30 contact visits a month, and Nichols can not get even one, the attorneys said.

The defense’s request for a temporary restraining order is being made here because the lawyers plan to ask Tuesday that the judge in Oklahoma, Wayne E. Alley, step aside in the case. They allege that he is biased against Nichols.

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In court papers, the defense lawyers said the warden at El Reno views Nichols as purportedly the most infamous terrorist in U.S. history, and that bias is behind his reasoning in denying the request for a visit. By doing so, prison officials are irreparably harming Nichols’s ability to mount a defense and causing him grave emotional distress, lawyers W. Gary Kohlman and Mark Rochon wrote.

The warden also refused the request when told that Nichols wanted only one visit with his wife, Marife, before she has to return to the Philippines. She was supposed to go back Wednesday, but her stay has been extended until the weekend.

U.S. District Judge James Robertson has scheduled a hearing for Thursday.

Nichols, 40, was indicted earlier this month along with Timothy James McVeigh on charges of conspiring to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The two men, who met in the Army, face the death penalty; 168 people, including several children at a day-care center, died in the explosion. Michael Fortier, an Army buddy of both men, also was indicted on lesser charges and is cooperating with the authorities.

Marife Torres Nichols married Nichols in 1991 in Cebu City. Nichols found her through a mail-order bride service.

Following the bombing, she spent more than 34 days in FBI custody, and as agents grilled her on her husband’s activities in the days leading up to the bombing, she was secretly moved from hotel room to hotel room. The defense attorneys expect her to be a key witness at her husband’s trial and said they will call her to the stand if prosecutors don’t do so first.