A day after taking charge of his own defence, the man accused of masterminding last year’s US sniper shootings yesterday cross-examined a policeman who let him slip away from the scene of the crime for which he is on trial.
The encounter between John Allen Muhammad, and the policeman who allowed him to leave the scene of one of the shootings, was among the most riveting exchanges in a day marked by the accused’s eccentric courtroom style.
Muhammad won the right to conduct his own defence on Monday — devastating his defence team and confounding legal experts. Analysts said that Muhammad had all but destroyed his chances of an acquittal on charges of killing Dean Meyers, and had put himself in peril of conviction and execution.
Meyers, a civil engineer, was killed with a single shot to the head as he stopped at a petrol station on his way home from work.
He was the seventh person to be killed in the shooting spree. Others were wounded in a series of seemingly random shootings which ended only with the arrest of Muhammad and his teenage companion, Lee Boy Malvo, who is to stand trial separately.
The pair have been charged with shooting 17 people, killing 12 and wounding five, in Maryland, Washington DC, Virginia, Alabama and Washington state.
The two men had numerous encounters with the police during the autumn rampage before their arrest, three weeks after the killings began.
The officer, Steven Bailey, had been on duty last October in Manassas, Virginia, close to the petrol station where Meyers was killed.
Bailey told the court he had been ordered to question potential witnesses in the area after the shooting. When the police officer encountered Muhammad at the wheel of a battered Chevrolet Caprice, half an hour after Meyers was shot, Bailey waved him along.
Under questioning yesterday, Bailey admitted that he had been duped by Muhammad, who had been polite and courteous. The police officer said he had readily accepting Muhammad’s explanation that he had been waved into the area by police as they secured the crime scene. He added that he was so calm he had raised no suspicion. ”I didn’t catch on,” Bailey told Muhammad. ”I wish I had.”
Yesterday’s encounter was among a series of bizarre exchanges between Muhammad and witnesses as he alternated between challenging their professional credentials and trying to charm them over. Muhammad asked the finger print expert, ”Is it a science? Is it more of a science or is it a guess?” Interrupting testimony from a coroner on the injuries to Meyers’s head, Muhammad said: ”Experts shouldn’t have opinions. Experts should have facts.”
The judge, LeRoy Millette, disagreed. ”Experts do have opinions,” he said, allowing the testimony to continue.
Muhammad sacked his defence team on Monday, a decision legal experts said would make it nearly impossible for him to win an acquittal.
That decision returned to haunt him yesterday after the judge chided him for consulting too regularly with his former defence team. It was unclear if this would have any impact on whether he would be allowed to continue to represent himself.
Millette said he believed that Muhammad appeared equipped to represent himself.
”Mr Muhammad appears to be competently representing himself so far,” the judge said. ”He seems to understand his legal rights and how he should protect his rights.” – Guardian Unlimited Â