Virginia Beach, Va. ? In a dramatic encounter that will be echoed throughout his trial, John Allen Muhammad cross-examined a restaurant owner Tuesday who was wounded and robbed in a shooting linked to last year’s sniper spree.

Paul J. LaRuffa’s testimony came a day after Muhammad was allowed to represent himself on murder charges related to the Oct. 9, 2002, killing of Dean Harold Meyers outside a Virginia gasoline station.

LaRuffa testified about the shooting a month earlier in which he was wounded in the chest and arm and robbed of about $3,600 and a laptop computer that was found with Muhammad when he was arrested. Prosecutors told the jury during opening statements that the sniper suspects robbed LaRuffa to help finance the spree.

Muhammad was courteous when questioning LaRuffa, who initially looked away from the sniper suspect but proceeded to answer his questions politely.

During questioning from prosecutors, LaRuffa said that after closing his restaurant in Clinton, Md., and getting in his car, “I saw a figure to my left. I saw a flash of light. The window broke. I heard shots. I was being shot. I said I wasn’t going to die. I said, ‘I’m not dying in this parking lot.”‘

LaRuffa, who choked back tears during part of his testimony, said he could not identify the man who shot him. He realized shortly afterward that he was bleeding from both the chest and the back. One bullet fragment lodged next to his spinal cord.

After court, LaRuffa described the cross-examination with Muhammad as surreal.

“It’s from the ‘Twilight Zone.’ Defendants aren’t supposed to question you, and that’s what happened,” he said.

In other testimony Tuesday, a policeman said he spoke to Muhammad near the scene of the shooting for which he is on trial, but let him go as the officer dealt with panicked drivers trying to flee the area.

Prince William Officer Steven Bailey testified that Muhammad was “very polite and very courteous” when they spoke as Muhammad drove his Chevrolet Caprice out of a restaurant parking lot where police believe the snipers fired the shot that killed Meyers. The meeting with the officer occurred just a half-hour after the shooting.

Bailey said Muhammad told him that police had actually directed him into the parking lot as they secured the crime scene. Only later that night did Bailey find out that was untrue.

“I didn’t catch on. I wish I had,” Bailey told Muhammad on cross-examination.

Police have said they had several encounters with the sniper suspects during the killing spree that terrorized the Washington area, but the manhunt was focused on a white van thought to be the sniper vehicle.