VIRGINIA BEACH, Virginia (AP) — The ex-wife of convicted sniper mastermind, John Allen Muhammad, testified at his sentencing yesterday that he had threatened to kill her three years ago, after the couple separated.

“He said … ‘You have become my enemy, and as my enemy I will kill you’,” Mildred Muhammad told the court.

She said John Muhammad also said in early 2000, the year they divorced, that he wouldn’t let her raise their three children. He took the children with him to the Caribbean shortly afterward, though Mildred Muhammad regained custody the following year. After that court hearing, in Washington state, Mildred Muhammad said her ex-husband stormed after her.

“I ran down the hall because of the way he was coming toward me. For me, I knew it was hostile. I knew he was coming for me,” she said.

She left with the children for her home that night and said she didn’t see her ex-husband again until yesterday’s hearing.

John Muhammad was convicted Monday of capital murder in the sniper shooting of Dean Harold Meyers, one of the 10 people shot to death during three weeks of attacks that terrorised the Washington area last fall.

Prosecutors have said one of Muhammad’s motives for the sniper killings may have been revenge against his ex-wife and that she might have been the ultimate target, with the other attacks meant to make her shooting appear the work of a random sniper so Muhammad could gain custody of their children. The judge, however, barred prosecutors from making that argument at trial, saying they lacked evidence.

The jury is now hearing evidence on which sentence — life without parole or the death penalty — to recommend.

In nearby Chesapeake, fellow sniper suspect Lee Boyd Malvo’s capital murder trial also resumed yesterday with testimony from Myrtha Cinada, whose father, 72 year-old Pascal Charlot, was the fifth victim of the sniper attacks.

Malvo is being tried in another sniper slaying, that of FBI Analyst Linda Franklin, who was shot outside a store in northern Virginia. But as in Muhammad’s trial, prosecutors are presenting evidence from the other attacks to support the capital murder charges, one accusing Malvo of taking part in multiple murders and the other alleging the killings were designed to terrorise the population.

Malvo and Muhammad were arrested October 24, 2002, as they slept in Muhammad’s 1990 Chevrolet Caprice that prosecutors say had been turned into a sniper’s nest. The car was parked at a rest stop near Frederick, Maryland. In it, investigators found the gun linked to the killings, authorities have testified.