PARIS, Oct 21: French police say they have sent to US investigators the description of a French military cadet, away without leave and apparently headed for North America, who is an expert marksman and bears the characteristics of the Washington sniper who in recent weeks is suspected of having killed eleven persons, and perhaps a twelfth on Saturday evening.

The man, whose name police refuse to make public, is said to have recently deserted from the elite French military officers’ school, Saint-Cyr-Coetquidan, the French equivalent of West Point which is located in Brittany.

According to news reports, the cadet is said to have gone AWOL and to have indicated that he was headed for North America. He is described by authorities at his school as being an “excellent tireur” — an excellent marksman — and is said to bear many of the same characteristics associated with the Washington sniper, although the school authorities would not reveal either the nature of the resemblance or the reasons why they were prompted to advise US authorities of the man’s disappearance and the possibility of his presence in the United States.

DPA ADDS: The sniper who has killed nine people and wounded three in the region around Washington D.C. could be a 25-year-old French deserter from officer training school, police sources said Monday in Paris.

According to a gendarme spokesman, schoolmates of the missing cadet said they “thought they recognized him” from a sketch of the sniper shown at the weekend on a French television station.

The cadet has been missing since early September from the military academy in the western French town of Coetquidan, the police sources said. When he left the school, he reportedly told friends that he was heading for Canada.

AFP ADDS: Police on Monday arrested two men in connection with the Washington-area sniper killings after hundreds of investigators swooped on a van in a carefully planned operation here.

But as they confirmed that an attack Saturday was at least the 12th by the elusive hitman since October 2, the head of the hunt also indicated that he had received a communication from the sniper.

The two men were detained after a raid by federal agents and police on a white van parked next to a telephone booth outside a gas station in Richmond, Virginia early Monday morning.

Hanover County Sheriff Stuart Cook said the two were being questioned in connection with the sniper attacks, which have seen nine people killed and three wounded, including the latest victim on Saturday in nearby Ashland, Virginia.

He would not say if they were suspects but confirmed that ballistic evidence from the latest shooting in a restaurant car park had linked it to the other single-bullet attacks.

A 37-year-old man is in critical condition in hospital after being shot in the car park of the Ponderosa restaurant in Ashland, Virginia, about 25 kilometers north of Richmond and 150 kilometers south of Washington. A bullet was removed from his body during surgery late Sunday.

Police had been laying in wait before surrounding a white Plymouth Voyager van parked next to a telephone booth outside an Exxon gas station in central Richmond, witnesses said. At least one other nearby gas station had been staked out, media reports said.

Helicopters and police cruisers swarmed around the filling station to secure the area before the van was captured, witnesses said.

Just afterward, Montgomery County police Chief Charles Moose, who is leading the hunt for the sniper, gave a brief statement to reporters to say that a communication had been received.

“The message that needs to be delivered is that we are going to respond to a message that we have received. We are preparing a response at this time,” he said, refusing to take questions.

Late Sunday, Moose appealed to the person who left a message near the Ponderosa restaurant to make contact.

“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.”

Some veteran investigators suggested the elusive sniper might now be trying to make contact to negotiate his surrender.

But others cautioned the probe could be led down the wrong path again, recalling that only last week an ex-convict seeking reward money allegedly gave police false descriptions of the suspect, his weapon and a getaway car.

A police official who asked not to be named said the message was being treated with the utmost secrecy by Moose and his team and that even lower-ranking investigators did not know its exact contents.

Police officers spent Sunday combing a wooded area behind the restaurant, from where it is believed the gunman fired his weapon, and interviewing witnesses.

As the police hunt continued, school chiefs in Chesterfield, Hanover and Henrico counties, as well as in Richmond, said they had decided to close schools under pressure from anguished parents, who feared for the safety of their children.—AFP