Prosecutors filed five separate charges against Jared Loughner, 22, including murder and attempted murder.

US authorities charged on Sunday a gunman over Arizona shooting in which a congresswoman was seriously injured and six others were killed.

Prosecutors filed five separate charges against Jared Loughner, 22, including murder and attempted murder in the federal court in Phoenix on Sunday over the attack.
Loughner, who was detained by bystanders at the scene of the shooting, is due to appear in a federal court in the state capital Phoenix on Monday at 2:00 pm (2100 GMT), prosecutors said.

Representative Gabrielle Giffords, 40, was in an induced coma as doctors treated bullet wounds to her head. Other six were killed in Saturday’s attack including a federal judge and a young girl.
Doctors said it was too early to say how long the recovery would take. Many patients with such serious wounds need at least months to return to anything close to normal life.
But the doctors voiced optimism after her rapid progress, helped in part by the fact that the bullet did not go through both hemispheres of her brain.

INVESTIHGATIONS
The director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Robert Mueller, said that there would be additional charges against Loughner.
"As the investigation goes on, there may well be additional charges that will be filed," Mueller told reporters in Tucson.

Mueller said that no "specific threat" remained, although authorities urged lawmakers to be careful. Police questioned a taxi driver seen entering the Safeway store with Loughner but concluded he was only seeking change for the fare, sheriff's deputy Jason Ogan said.
Prosecutor said Loughner went to a similar public meeting with Giffords in August 2007. Investigators searched a safe at Loughner's home, where he lived with his family, and found a letter from Giffords thanking him for his attendance, the criminal complaint said.

Also in the safe they found an envelope with the hand-written notes, "I planned ahead," "My assassination" and "Giffords," it said.
Giffords, 40, became the first Jewish woman to be elected to Congress from Arizona in 2006 and is married to a NASA astronaut.
She was a centrist and a member of the so-called Blue Dog Coalition of Democrats who support fiscally conservative, pro-business policies.

COMMENTS
US President Barack Obama called on Americans to observe a moment of silence on Monday for victims of the attack in Arizona as some officials asked if the nation's often divisive politics had spiraled out of control.

Lawmakers of the rival Republican Party, which swept last year's election, denounced the attack and suspended proceedings of the House of Representatives whose new leadership had taken over just three days earlier.

John Boehner, the newly minted house speaker, said in his Ohio constituency that an "attack on one who serves is an attack on all who serve."
"No act, no matter how heinous, must be allowed to stop us from our duty," he said.