By Bill GerouxVIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (Reuters) - Defense lawyers for Washington-area sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad rested their case on Wednesday, taking less than three hours to counter three weeks of evidence and more than 130 witnesses put forward by prosecutors.
Defense attorneys Peter Greenspun and Jonathan Shapiro offered just five witnesses in the capital-murder case against Muhammad, who is accused of leading a 23-day sniper spree last year that spread fear throughout the Washington area.
Muhammad did not take the stand in his defense.
Judge LeRoy Millette scheduled closing arguments in the trial for Thursday, the same day opening statements are expected in a separate trial of alleged accomplice Lee Boyd Malvo, now 18, in nearby Chesapeake, Virginia.
Attorneys picked a jury for Malvo on Wednesday, choosing 12 jurors and four alternates. The jury of nine women and seven men included a first-grade teacher, a minister, a nurse and a mechanic.
Both Muhammad, 42, and Malvo could face execution if convicted; each is charged with two counts of murder for a single death and the trials offer a test of the new Virginia anti-terrorism law, enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
Muhammad is on trial for the Oct. 9, 2002, slaying of Dean Harold Meyers outside a Manassas-area gas station. Meyers' death was one of 16 shootings in Washington, Maryland and Virginia prosecutors say were committed by Muhammad and Malvo.
Prosecutors portrayed the Gulf War veteran as indoctrinating the teen-ager, training him as a sniper and orchestrating a series of random attacks.
In choosing their witnesses, the defense appeared to try to separate Muhammad from Malvo, who the prosecution suggests did most of the shooting and to undermine the testimony of two prosecution witnesses who placed Muhammad near the killing scenes.
They also raised questions about some of the evidence seized from Muhammad's car and asked a police witness why several items, including a rifle scope, had not appeared on an initial list of what had been seized.
The judge began Wednesday's session by rejecting defense motions to throw out the two capital murder charges against Muhammad on legal grounds.
The judge said he had seen enough evidence for the jury to conclude that Muhammad had directed Malvo to commit the sniper killings as part of a plan to spread terror and extort money from the government.
