Prosecutors were expected to finish presenting their case to a Colorado judge last night in the preliminary hearing of a former graduate student who is charged with shooting 12 people to death and wounding 58 others in a movie theatre last summer.

Prosecutors have outlined their case against the gunman who shot dead 12 people at a US premiere of the latest Batman film.

A hearing to decide if accused Colorado cinema gunman James Holmes should stand trial might not be held until January.

The suspect in last month’s Colorado cinema shooting that left 12 dead was expected to be in court again today as prosecutors seek to show that he is sane.

The judge in the deadly US cinema shooting case has refused to lift a gagging order that prevents the University of Colorado from releasing information about former graduate student and suspect James Holmes.

Lawyers for the suspect in the Colorado cinema shootings said today that their client is mentally ill and they need more time to assess the nature of his illness.

Colorado prosecutors formally charged a former neuroscience graduate student with 24 counts of murder and 116 counts of attempted murder in the shooting rampage at the midnight showing of the new Batman movie.

The man accused of killing a dozen people in a Colorado movie theatre during a showing of the new Batman film made his first appearance in court, sitting silently in a red jailhouse jumpsuit and with his hair dyed bright red.