Malvo calls Muhammad a ‘coward’

Lee Boyd Malvo, testifying in a Rockville courtroom yesterday, called his former mentor and convicted sniper mastermind John Allen Muhammad a “coward” and said he is offering his side of the 2002 attacks “for the victims, for what it’s worth, if anything.”

“I am not proud of myself, and I’m just trying to make amends, if possible,” said Malvo, 21, at the end of a dramatic day in the trial of Muhammad, who faces the death penalty in six fatal Montgomery County sniper attacks — part of a three-week shooting spree that killed 10 persons in the Washington area.

“I am here just to tell the story, tell the truth, and to face Muhammad,” the sniper’s former apprentice told the jury.

Muhammad, 45, who is acting as his own lawyer in the trial, spent almost an hour late in the day questioning his accomplice and former protege in a series of questions seemingly intended to antagonize Malvo.

“The last time we played basketball, who won?” Muhammad asked.

“You,” said Malvo, glaring.

Earlier, under questioning from the prosecution, Malvo said he would have died for Muhammad at one time, but that after three years in jail, he had changed his mind.

Malvo initially told police that he was the shooter in all the incidents, but yesterday, he said Muhammad pulled the trigger in 10 of the 13 shootings.

Malvo also testified about Muhammad’s plans to escalate their terrorism. He said the sniper wanted to detonate bombs on school buses in Baltimore, shoot a Baltimore police officer and plant explosives at the funeral to kill as many police officers as possible.

Malvo said Muhammad told him that “lives mean nothing” and that the Gulf War veteran wanted to use terror to wreck the area economy.

Malvo said he thought Muhammad’s goal was to reclaim his three children from his ex-wife, Mildred, who had taken them from Bellingham, Wash., to Clinton, Md.

“I tried to explain to him that we should just get the children and leave. I asked, ‘Why?’ And he didn’t answer,” Malvo said. “He said, ‘No, this is what we’re going to do, and it’s final.’ ”

Muhammad shared his plan to shoot and bomb people in July 2002, on a trip to Baton Rouge, La., Malvo said.

“That was just dropped on me … like a bombshell,” Malvo said.

After that conversation, he put one bullet in a five-shot revolver and pulled the trigger four times, but could not pull it a fifth.

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