**The US Supreme Court has rejected an appeal for a stay of execution from lawyers for the man behind the 2002 sniper attacks in Washington DC.**John Allen Muhammad is due to be executed on Tuesday for the murder of Dean Harold Meyers, one of 10 people killed during three weeks of attacks.
The court gave no reason for the rejection of the clemency appeal.
Muhammad’s then teenage accomplice, Lee Boyd Malvo, is serving life in prison for his part in the attacks.
The two men killed six people in Alabama and Louisiana before moving on to Maryland, Washington and Virginia.
Mr Meyers was shot at a petrol station in Manassas, Virginia.
Muhammad will die by lethal injection at a prison in Virginia but his lawyers have criticised the court ruling.
“Virginia will execute a severely mentally ill man who also suffered from Gulf War Syndrome,” the Associated Press news agency quoted lawyer Jonathan Sheldon as saying.
Mr Sheldon also criticised the timing of the execution, due the day before Veterans Day, a US public holiday honouring the military.