Baltimore authorities are seeking to extradite a city man arrested last week in Georgia on charges that he fatally shot an 18-year-old man in January, police said yesterday.

Javier Sotomayer -- also known as Jameen A. Martine -- was arrested Wednesday in Marietta, Ga., on first-degree murder charges in the fatal shooting Jan. 25 of Ricky Gholson in the 1800 block of N. Port St. in East Baltimore, according to Baltimore police.

Police say Gholson was killed in retaliation for the non-fatal shooting of one of Sotomayer's friends.

Shortly after the killing, detectives found witnesses who told them that the killer and his friends had lived in Camden, N.J., before moving to Baltimore, said homicide Detective Marvin Sydnor.

Another witness told detectives that the killer had driven a van parked about two blocks from the shooting scene, Sydnor said.

Detectives ran the van's license plates through a state computer database and found its registered owner was Jameen A. Martine, an alias used by Sotomayer, Sydnor said. Witnesses identified Sotomayer as the shooter in photo lineups, according to investigators.

Detectives learned Sotomayer's true identity only after mailing photographs of him to Camden police, who said they were seeking the same man on a murder warrant.

It is unclear when Sotomayer moved to Baltimore, although he was arrested late last year under another alias on drug charges and released on $25,000 bail, court records show.

In May, a circuit judge issued a warrant for his arrest for failure to appear in court.

Sotomayer fraudulently obtained a Maryland driver's license under the name of Jameen A. Martine by giving Motor Vehicles Administration officials a fake Florida driver's license number and telling them that he had lost the license, Sydnor said.

Detectives with the Warrant Apprehension Task Force tracked Sotomayer to Georgia, where U.S. marshals arrested him.