Police detain sniper suspect
October 22 2002
Police cars and SWAT teams yesterday detained a man near the scene of the latest suspected sniper shooting in Virginia, local media reported.
CNN television said the man was taken into custody after a phone booth and white van were surrounded on a main road in Richmond, Virginia.
Police on Sunday issued an appeal to the person who left a message at a restaurant in Ashland, Virginia, where a 37-year-old man was shot and seriously wounded on Saturday.
The sniper has killed nine people and wounded two others before the shooting.
"To the person that left us a message at the Ponderosa last night: You gave us a telephone number. We do want to talk to you. Call us at the number you provided. Thank you," Montgomery County police chief Charles Moose said.
Police sources in Paris said earlier yesterday the sniper could be a 25-year-old French deserter from officer training school.
France has alerted Interpol about the army deserter, who is known to be an excellent marksman.
The cadet has been missing since early September from the elite military school, Saint-Cyr Coetquidan, in Brittany, eastern France, after going on vacation in August, officials said. When he left the school, he reportedly told friends that he was heading for Canada.
Interpol was notified of the disappearance of the officer, a normal procedure, and a judicial investigation was opened, which is also normal, said Defence Ministry spokesman Jean-Francois Bureau.
Bureau acknowledged there was some speculation of a connection with the sniper investigation, but he said that was just hypothetical at this point.
"We have no certitude of a link," he said in a telephone interview. However, "this soldier has a very, very good reputation as a marksman."
And since the September 11 terror attacks on the United States, "these are things we follow very closely," he added.
Interpol, the international police agency based in the French city of Lyon, said it refuses to comment on active cases.
The deserter, not identified by name, was given permission for an August trip to the United States and Canada, said Bureau. Police sources said he had planned a trip to Chicago.
RTL radio reported the deserter was of Yugoslav origin, but Bureau could not confirm that, saying that he had to be a French citizen to attend the military school.
The missing officer never showed up for school in September. The gendarmerie, a force under the Defence Ministry, sent a note last week to the Interior Ministry. Interpol was then contacted, said Bureau.
Bureau cast doubt on reports in the French media that students at Saint-Cyr alleged they recognised their comrade in an unofficial police composite drawing of the sniper reportedly shown on French television.
Agencies
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