Metro Briefs

DISTRICT

Panel criticizes King memorial

A federal arts panel has criticized the design of the statue to be placed at the Martin Luther King memorial on the Mall, saying it looks “confrontational” and resembles the head of a socialist state chieftain more than a civil rights leader.

Models of the 28-foot-tall statue designed by Chinese sculptor Lei Yixin depict King emerging from a chunk of granite, his arms folded in front of his chest and his face bearing an intense gaze.

The U.S. Commission of Fine Arts, which must approve the design before work on the memorial can begin, said the memorial should be a more sympathetic rendering of King.

Harry Johnson, president of the Washington, D.C., Martin Luther King Jr. National Memorial, said a new design would be submitted June 15 that includes a “softening of Dr. King.” His facial expression, for example, will be changed.

VIRGINIA

McLEAN

D.C. sniper again asks for appeal

Attorneys for convicted sniper John Allen Muhammad say their client has changed his mind again and now wants to go forward with a federal appeal of his conviction and death sentence.

In a handwritten letter from death row made public earlier this week, Muhammad told the Virginia attorney general that he wanted to suspend all appeals of his 2003 death sentence.

But Muhammad’s attorney, James Connell, said in a letter to the judge made public yesterday that he has since spoken with Muhammad and that his client now wants to go forward with an appeal.

Muhammad and his teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, were convicted for their roles in the 2002 sniper spree that terrorized the Washington region.

MARYLAND

ANNAPOLIS

Pregnant prisoner temporarily released

Immigration officials will allow a pregnant woman from Sierra Leone who is facing deportation to have her baby at home.

Mahawa Conde was released this week and will remain out of jail for three months after Democratic Sens. Barbara A. Mikulski and Benjamin L. Cardin, along with Yale Law School students, wrote to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials asking that she be released.

Conde was enslaved for two years during the civil war that ravaged her home country in the 1990s by Revolutionary United Front rebels who sexually abused her, said Michael Tan, a Yale law student who has helped with her case.

Conde, who has lived in the United States since 1998, does not have a green card. She faces deportation after pleading guilty to stealing from her employer.

From wire dispatches and staff reports