Malvo and MuhammadFLINT, Michigan (AP):
A JAMAICAN man who co-owned the blue Chevrolet Caprice believed to have been used in the Washington-area sniper attacks appeared in court yesterday and is fully co-operating with federal authorities, his attorney said.
Nathaniel O. Osbourne, 26, waived his right to a detention hearing in Michigan, where he was arrested Saturday, and agreed to be moved to federal custody in Maryland.
Osbourne, described as a friend of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad, is wanted for questioning as a material witness in the attacks that left 10 people dead and three critically wounded over three weeks in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Federal defender Kenneth R. Sasse said Sunday that Osbourne was fully co-operating with federal authorities.
US Magistrate Wallace Capel ordered Osbourne held without bond.
A separate Associated Press report out of Virginia yesterday said prosecutors have also announced plans to charge the two sniper suspects in that state, where 17-year-old Jamaican John Lee Malvo could face the death penalty.
Virginia prosecutors will file charges today to cover two woundings and at least two of the three killings there, Spotsylvania County, Virginia, Common-wealth's attorney William Neely said Saturday.
Neely said he will seek the death penalty for Muhammad, 41. Malvo could face death, but Neely said his sentence would depend on his role in the shootings.
Virginia and Alabama where Muhammad and Malvo are charged with killing a woman outside a liquor store in September allow the death penalty for crimes committed at age 17.
Osbourne, said to be of Jamaican descent and who has lived in Camden, New Jersey, was arrested at a home in Flint, Michigan, but was not considered a suspect in the shootings.
Osbourne was visiting a woman in Flint, according to the Rev. Charlie Byrd, who lives on the same street. Byrd told The Flint Journal that Osbourne and the woman, who is a member of his church, had met at a truck driving school in Indianapolis.
Byrd said the two were considering marriage, and came to him briefly Wednesday for counselling. "He seemed like he was a nice young man to me," Byrd said, adding that he had met him only once.
Authorities say a hole cut in the car's trunk could have allowed a sniper to fire at unsuspecting victims from the concealment of the car's interior, leaving no evidence.
Neely said Virginia prosecutors have been rushing to file charges to discourage federal authorities from filing their own.
Justice Department officials were still deciding whether to bring their own charges.
One official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said federal prosecutors could use the Hobbs Act, which allows the government to seek the death penalty in murders where killers try to extort money. Letters left behind demanded US$10 million.
Authorities in Maryland were the first to file charges Friday, covering the six deaths in their area. They said they would seek the death penalty against Muhammad; Malvo would be tried as an adult, but the death penalty could not be applied there if his reported age of 17 is verified.
With suspects in custody, communities terrorised by the shootings gleefully welcomed the end of school lockdowns and cancellations of outdoor events.
The last of the sniper's victims, bus driver Conrad Johnson, a Jamaican, was mourned Saturday at a service in Silver Spring, where two dozen buses carrying transit workers joined the funeral procession.
