MANASSAS, Va. - A Virginia judge denied yesterday a request from television and radio stations to broadcast the trial of sniper suspect John Allen Muhammad but agreed to allow still cameras.

Prince William County Circuit Court Judge LeRoy F. Millette Jr. set a trial date of Oct. 14. Although he set aside eight weeks for the trial, prosecutors and defense attorneys said they don't expect it to last that long.

Millette said he would allow still cameras in the courtroom as long as he can't hear the shutters, and they don't prove a distraction.

Muhammad, 41, is charged with capital murder in the Oct. 9 death of engineer Dean Harold Meyers, one in a string of random, sniper-style shootings that terrified the region. Meyers, 53, was shot while pumping gas at a Manassas Sunoco station on his drive home to Gaithersburg, Md.

A lawyer for the Radio-Television News Directors Association said the fear inspired by that killing and the 12 other sniper shootings in October makes the whole region a victim, and thus everyone should be able to watch the trial on television.

"We are the victims," said the lawyer, Barbara Van Gelder, in court yesterday. "It is our children whose school activities were curtailed, whose soccer practices were canceled. It is every one of us who felt fear when we had to fill up our gas tanks."

But the prosecutors and defense attorneys said TV cameras would intimidate and influence witnesses, distract jurors and potentially influence people who might be jurors in other jurisdictions that want to try Muhammad.

Along with his traveling companion, Lee Boyd Malvo, 17, Muhammad is accused of shootings in Maryland, the District of Columbia, Virginia, Louisiana, Georgia, Alabama and Washington state.

"We want this case tried in a courtroom, based on facts and evidence," said Peter D. Greenspun, one of Muhammad's attorneys. "It's not that you think about it [the camera] constantly, but it's always there, over your shoulder."

The judge said there was a possibility that witnesses would be affected by seeing their testimony on television and that jurors might have more difficulty avoiding news of the trial if it were televised: "The court will certainly not minimize the public interest in this case. But I have to balance that against the right of Mr. Muhammad to receive a fair trial - and that right is paramount."

Muhammad appeared in the small, crowded courtroom unshaven and wearing an orange prison jumpsuit. The only words he spoke were "Yes, sir," three times in response to questions from the judge about his waiver of the speedy trial statute.

Also yesterday, the youngest victim of the shootings - Iran Brown, who was 13 when he was shot outside his Bowie middle school Oct. 7 - joined first lady Laura Bush on a holiday tour of Children's Hospital in Washington. Iran was discharged from the hospital last month.

"You look like you're doing great!" Mrs. Bush told Iran. "Bless you, darling."

The boy appeared a bit sheepish about all the attention. His thumbs hooked in his pockets, he said little as he visited with the first lady.

The second sniper suspect, Malvo, is charged in the Oct. 14 death of FBI analyst Linda Franklin, who was shot as she left a Home Depot in the Seven Corners section of Fairfax County. Malvo is scheduled for a preliminary hearing in Fairfax County Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court on Jan. 14, which is expected to end with a judge shifting the case to Circuit Court, where the teen would be tried as an adult and could face the death penalty.

Sun staff writer Andrea Siegel and the Associated Press contributed to this article.