THE leader of the sniper team that killed ten people in the Washington area last year should be executed, a jury decided yesterday.

As the jury in Virginia delivered its verdict on John Allen Muhammad, 42, the Gulf War veteran maintained the same unflinching demeanour that he had shown throughout most of his trial.

Having found Muhammad guilty on terrorism and murder charges last week, the jury deliberated for five hours over two days before recommending the death penalty. Under Virginia law, Muhammad faces death either by injection or electrocution.

Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr can reduce the punishment to life in prison without parole when Muhammad is formally sentenced on February 12, but it is widely expected that the jury’s wishes will prevail.

The jury concluded that prosecutors had proved both aggravating factors allowing the death penalty: that Muhammad would pose a danger in the future and that his crimes were wantonly vile.

Muhammad was found guilty on November 17 of two murder counts, conspiracy and a weapons charge in the death of Dean Meyers, a Maryland man shot at a petrol station on October 9 last year near Manassas, Virginia. Virginia law allows two capital murder charges in the case of a single death and Muhammad was convicted of two such death-penalty charges. One involved multiple murders, in which Muhammad was found guilty of killing Meyers within three years of committing another slaying; the other involved committing murder as an act of terrorism.

His alleged accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, 18, is on trial separately in nearby Chesapeake. He also faces the death penalty if convicted of the killing of Linda Franklin, an FBI worker shot outside a DIY shop in October last year.

Muhammad was principally found guilty of killing Dean Harold Myers, a Vietnam veteran, who was hit by a single bullet to the head on October 9 as he filled his car at a petrol station in Virginia.

The pair are accused of shooting 19 people, killing 13 and wounding six, in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and the District of Columbia during September and October last year in what prosecutors say was an attempt to extort $10 million from the federal government.

After the verdict, several of the jurors appeared outside the court to give emotional press interviews. Unlike the British criminal system, jurors are free to reveal the dynamics of the jury room.

Dennis Bowman said that he had voted on Friday for life in prison, but said: “I thought about it over the weekend and remembered seeing Muhammad in the courtroom.

“He’s going to bide his time. Sooner or later he will find the opportunity to harm somebody else. That was what brought me around to decide the death penalty and put an end to this once and for all.”

Heather Best-Teague said: “The hardest thing for me, truthfully, was the fact that he has children, and I know how hard it would be for me never to see mine again.”

When Muhammad and Mr Malvo were arrested, John Ashcroft, the Attorney- General and an advocate of the death penalty, made sure that they were sent to Virginia, citing the state’s ability to impose “the ultimate sanction”.

The Death Toll

• October 2, 2002: James Martin, 55, killed outside a grocery store

• October 3: James Buchanan, 39, shot dead while cutting grass; Premkumar Walekar, 54, filling his taxi with petrol; Sarah Ramos, 34, reading on a park bench; Lori Rivera, 25, vacuum-cleaning her van; Pascal Charlot, 72, at a bus stop

• October 9: Dean Meyers, 53, killed at a petrol station

• October 11: Kenneth Bridges, 53, at a petrol station

• October 14: Linda Franklin, 47, FBI analyst, outside a shopping centre

• October 22: Conrad Johnson, 35, bus driver, 35, on the steps of his bus

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