The teenager accused of taking part in 21 sniper shootings around Washington and in other parts of the United States last year may have been handed over to his co-accused by his mother as security for money she owed.
The suggestion comes from an investigation by the Antiguan government into the activities of John Allen Muhammad (41) the co-accused.
US investigators now suggest that John Lee Malvo may have carried out most, if not all, the shootings himself. His alleged accomplice, Muhammad, is suspected of using Antigua as a base for producing forged identity papers for sale.
After the pair were arrested in Maryland in October, the Antiguan government ordered an investigation of the older man.
Its investigators’ report suggests that Una James, the teenager’s mother, may have owed Muhammad money for forged documents she used to enter the US illegally in 2001.
According to a witness quoted in the report, Muhammad may have ”held on to Malvo as security” until he received payment.
The witness was identified as a man who married James while she was illegally in the US.
She was deported from the country last month.
Muhammad is said to have had a father-son relationship with the teenager and to have introduced him occasionally as his son.
He is reported to have taught him martial arts and to have travelled with him across the country.
Malvo and his mother are Jamaican. James is said to have left her home for Antigua in 1998 and to have settled in the Cashew Hill area. Her son is thought to have joined her in 1999.
Two years later she allegedly entered the US on the false documents allegedly provided by Muhammad, an American citizen and former serviceman who had spent time in the Caribbean and was estranged from his own family.
Malvo is said to have gone to Florida and spent five or six weeks at school in Fort Myers, where his mother was living.
Then he was known to have been with Muhammad in the Tacoma and Seattle area in Washington state, where they sometimes lived rough or in a homeless shelter.
The Antiguan report alleges that Muhammad lived by selling false papers, including American passports and driving licences, and may have made $60 000 from his activities.
It says he also dealt in false Antiguan passports, although they have little value on the international market compared with American ones.
His main clients are said to have been Jamaicans seeking to enter the US. He allegedly charged them $3 000 for an identity package, which would have included a driver’s licence, often seen as an adequate identity document in the US.
As a US citizen he was able to travel freely between the countries and may have accompanied his clients when they entered the US illegally.
He is said to have helped find air tickets for his clients and to have flown with them to Miami and Puerto Rico to ensure that they entered US territory safely.
”He found a fertile market in selling forged US travel documents,’’ said John Fuller, the chairperson of the commission of inquiry.
”His outgoing, friendly nature and his attractive physical attributes all lent to his being trusted and liked.
”He also seems to have a good working knowledge of psychology and used it to prey on anyone from whom he needed an advantage.’’
The report suggests that Muhammad was engaged in other illegal activities, such as counterfeiting currency. He is also alleged to be linked to a drug dealer.
The inquiry explored his possible involvement in the unsolved murder in Antigua in September 2000 of Deon Wylie. There is no suggestion that he was involved in terrorist activity, one of the issues also examined by the team of inquiry.
The 12-page summary of the report was presented to the attorney general of Antigua and Barbuda.
In all, the pair are accused of 21 shootings, 13 of which were fatal.
They took place in Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia and the Washington DC area. Their first trial will be held in Virginia, where the prosecution is seeking the death penalty.
What has emerged from the US end of the investigation is that Malvo is suspected of being involved in most, if not all, of the shootings.
The 50 detectives still working on the case have been searching for evidence placing Muhammad at the scenes of the offences.
The investigators claim that Malvo has already admitted to at least three shootings, but there appears to be a lack of evidence linking Muhammad to the killings. — Â