Washington sniper is executed in Virginia
- 00:00:47
- ITN
Washington sniper is executed in Virginia
A sniper who terrorised America during a three-week killing spree in 2002 has been executed by lethal injection. John Allen Muhammad, 48, and his teenage accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, were behind a series of attacks that left 10 people dead in and around the Washington DC area. Malvo is serving a life sentence in prison for his part in the murders. Muhammad was pronounced dead at 9.11pm local time (2.11am GMT), five minutes after being injected with the drugs, at the Greenville Correctional Centre in Virginia. It followed the failure of an 11th-hour appeal by his lawyers to commute the sentence to life imprisonment on the grounds the convicted murderer was severely mentally ill. The sniper was asked if he wished to give a final statement, but remained silent. "He didn't acknowledge us or look at us," Larry Traylor, spokesman for Virginia Department of Corrections, said, adding: "He seemed quiet and relaxed, I never heard him utter a word or say anything in particular at all." Witnesses said he twitched a minute into the procedure but was largely motionless. Muhammad's reign of terror lasted from October 2 to October 24 in 2002. During that time he and Malvo taunted police as they shot people at random from their car. In all some 16 people were hit by the snipers' bullets across Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC. Ten people were killed as a result.
ITN | November 11, 2009
