Sunday, March 21, 2010 Previous editions
A sniper who terrorised America during a three-week killing spree in 2002 is due to be executed today after an 11th-hour bid to block his death failed.
The US Supreme Court refused to stand in the way of John Allen Muhammad’s planned execution by lethal injection inside a Virginia prison for killing Dean Harold Meyers.
Muhammad, 48, and his teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, were behind a series of attacks seven years ago that left 10 dead in and around the Washington DC area.
The convicted murderer will be executed at 9pm local time (2am Wednesday Irish time) failing a last ditch attempt to get the sentence commuted.
A clemency petition has been put in front of Virginia Governor Timothy Kaine claiming that Muhammad is mentally ill and should not be given the lethal injection.
But the governor has previously said that he knows of no reason why he should commute the killer’s sentence to life in prison.
Muhammad’s reign of terror lasted from October 2 to October 24 in 2002.
During that time he and Malvo, then 17, taunted police as they shot people at random from their car.
In all some 16 people were hit by the snipers’ bullets across Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC. Ten people were killed as a result.
Within a 27-hour period at the beginning of the killing spree, six people were murdered by Muhammad and Malvo.
The pair are also suspected of being behind a series of fatal shootings in other states including Louisiana, Alabama and Arizona.
Malvo is serving a life sentence in prison for his part in the murders.
Muhammad and Malvo’s victims included a 13-year-old schoolboy who survived the attack and a 72-year-old who was gunned down while attempting to cross the road.
Muhammad, believed to be the mastermind behind the killings, was convicted in Virginia in 2003 of four counts including the murder of Mr Meyers. A jury recommended the death penalty with the sentenced confirmed in a Virginian court two years later
Further convictions over the snipers’ murders occurred in Maryland in 2005.
The Supreme Court made no comment yesterday after announcing that it had refused Muhammad’s appeal.
After the decision was made, his attorney Jonathan Sheldon said: “Virginia will execute a severely mentally ill man who also suffered from Gulf War Syndrome the day before Veterans Day.”
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