WASHINGTON, June 1 (Xinhua) -- John Allen Muhammad, who committed a series of sniper murders in Washington D.C. area in 2002, was sentenced Thursday to 6 consecutive life sentences for 6killings in Maryland, CBS News reported.

    Muhammad, 45, is already under a death sentence in Virginia fora killing there.

    "You will spend every day for the rest of your life locked in acage," Judge James Ryan told him at the Montgomery County Circuit Court, Maryland, when announcing the sentences.

    Muhammad showed no emotion when some audience in the courtroom applauded.

    On Tuesday, a jury convicted him of six murder charges after a four-week trial in which he acted as his own attorney.

    The three-week sniper shooting spree in the autumn of 2002 leftten people killed, and three wounded, in Virginia, Maryland and Washington D.C., as the whole capital area was gripped in great fear.

    The trial in Maryland marked the first time that Boyd Malvo, the young complice in the crime, testified against Muhammad, his former mentor and manipulator.

    During two days of testimony last week, Malvo, 21, gave the first inside account of the shootings and described Muhammad's elaborate plans for a reign of terror.

    Malvo, who originally claimed to have fired every shot in the crime, told the court recently that he pulled the trigger in threeof the attacks, killing one man and injuring two other people, andthe triggerman for the rest of the victims was Muhammad.

    According to him, Muhammad planned two phases of attacks -- sixshootings a day for a month, followed by a wave of bombings of school buses and children's hospitals.

    Malvo said Muhammad also hoped to extort as much as 10 million U.S. dollars from authorities and use the money to set up a schoolin Canada to teach homeless children how to use guns and explosives.

    Muhammad, now with a death sentence and six consecutive life sentences, could still face prosecution for earlier shootings in Alabama and Louisiana. Enditem