Sniper suspect goes back to his lawyers

Washington sniper suspect John Muhammad gave up trying to be his own lawyer and put his fate back in the hands of his court-appointed lawyers, after two days of courtroom fumbling.

“Mr Muhammad no longer believes it is in his best interest to represent himself,” Judge LeRoy Millette told the Virginia Beach jury in the murder case.

Muhammad, 42, whose face was swollen from a chronic toothache, did not spell out his reasons in open court but assured the judge that it had nothing to do with his health.

He stunned the judge and his own lawyers when he demanded the right to act as his own lawyer just as opening arguments in the capital case were to begin on Monday.

After court adjourned yesterday, Muhammad’s lawyers, Peter Greenspun and Jonathan Shapiro, expressed relief that their client had changed course. They had served as standby counsel while Muhammad represented himself.

Prosecutors declined to comment.

Although the judge said Muhammad represented himself competently, legal experts said he probably inflicted heavy damage on his case with a rambling opening statement that failed entirely to address the facts of the case.

During testimony, many of Muhammad’s objections were overruled, and prosecutors objected to the way some of his questions to witnesses were posed, complaining that he was making gratuitous remarks or delving into irrelevant areas.

Muhammad is on trial for the murder of Dean Meyers, who was gunned down at a Virginia petrol station during the shooting spree that left 10 people dead in the Washington DC area last October.

Yesterday, the most dramatic testimony yet came from off-licence employee Muhammad Rashid, who was shot in the stomach in Brandywine, Maryland, in September 2002.

Rashid identified fellow sniper suspect Lee Malvo as the man who shot and robbed him while Rashid played dead so his attacker would not shoot again. Prosecutors then played Rashid’s emergency call in which he wailed for help for six minutes, telling the dispatcher: “I am dying. … I am all by myself.”

Prosecutors have said that ballistics evidence in the Rashid shooting will be linked to other shootings and that the robbery was one of several used to finance the sniper spree.

Malvo, 18, is due to go on trial separately next month for the murder of an FBI analyst. He also faces the death penalty if convicted.