The man accused of burning a woman to death on a New York subway train has been indicted on murder and arson charges.

Sebastian Zapeta is accused of setting a sleeping woman on fire and then fanning the flames with a shirt, which caused her to be engulfed by the blaze.

He allegedly sat on a platform at Brooklyn’s Coney Island station, opposite the stopped train, and watched as she burned to death.

Authorities are still working to identify the victim.

Zapeta, 33, has been charged with one count of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson in the first degree.

After a brief hearing in which the indictment was announced, Brooklyn District Attorney Eric Gonzalez said: “This was a malicious deed. A sleeping, vulnerable woman on our subway system.”

Mr Gonzalez said police and medical examiners are using fingerprints and advanced DNA techniques to identify the victim, while also retracing her steps before the murder.

“Our hearts go out not only to this victim, but we know that there’s a family,” he said. “Just because someone appears to have been living in the situation of homelessness does not mean that there’s not going to be family devastated by the tragic way she lost her life.”

Zapeta was initially charged with murder and arson in a criminal complaint earlier this week.

Such filings are often a first step in the criminal process because all felony cases in New York require a grand jury indictment to proceed to trial, unless a defendant waives that requirement.

Zapeta was not present at the hearing. The most serious charge he is facing carries a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole and the indictment will be unsealed on 7 January.

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Zapeta is a Guatemalan who entered the US illegally having already been deported in 2018, officials say.

He was taken into custody last Sunday, after three children called 911 when they recognised him from an image shared by police.

During questioning, prosecutors say he claimed not to know what happened, and noted he consumes alcohol – but did identify himself in photos and videos showing the fire being lit.

The judge overseeing the case of a woman who says she was raped by Jay-Z and Sean “Diddy” Combs when she was 13 has criticised the “inappropriate” behaviour of Jay-Z’s lawyer.

In a written order, Judge Analisa Torres hit out at Alex Spiro for what she described as his combative motions and “inflammatory language” against the plaintiff’s lawyer, Tony Buzbee.

Mr Spiro – who has been acting for Jay-Z for around three weeks – previously called for the Alabama woman’s identity to be revealed. She is currently identified only as “Jane Doe”, a US legal term to say she is anonymous.

The Manhattan judge has said she can proceed anonymously at this stage but may be required to reveal her identity at a later date.

Combs remains in a Brooklyn jail awaiting trial on federal sex trafficking and racketeering charges. He has pleaded not guilty.

He is facing a wave of sexual assault lawsuits, many of which were filed by Texas lawyer Mr Buzbee, who says his firm represents more than 150 people, both men and women, alleging sexual abuse and exploitation by Combs.

The lawsuits allege many individuals were abused at parties in New York, California and Florida after being given drugged drinks.

Combs’ lawyers have dismissed Mr Buzbee’s lawsuits as “shameless publicity stunts, designed to extract payments from celebrities who fear having lies spread about them, just as lies have been spread about Mr Combs”.

Jay-Z, whose real name is Sean Carter, previously said in a statement that Mr Buzbee was trying to blackmail him to settle the plaintiff’s allegations.

Mr Buzbee said in an email that his firm does not comment on court rulings.

In her lawsuit, the woman claims Jay-Z and Sean Combs raped her when she was 13 after the MTV Video Music Awards in 2000.

Both men strenuously deny the allegations.

Mr Spiro has previously asked the judge to dismiss Jay-Z from the woman’s lawsuit.

Citing an interview the plaintiff did with Sky’s US partner NBC News, Mr Spiro wrote that the broadcast revealed “glaring inconsistencies and outright impossibilities” in the plaintiff’s story.

The woman has admitted inconsistencies, saying she had “made some mistakes”, but standing by her allegations overall.

Judge Torres wrote in her order on Thursday that Mr Spiro had submitted a “litany of letters and motions attempting to impugn the character of Plaintiff’s lawyer, many of them expounding on the purported ‘urgency’ of this case”.

She added: “Carter’s lawyer’s relentless filing of combative motions containing inflammatory language and ad hominem attacks is inappropriate, a waste of judicial resources, and a tactic unlikely to benefit his client. The court will not fast-track the judicial process merely because counsel demands it.”

She said Mr Spiro – who had accused the plaintiff’s lawyer of having a “chronic inability to follow the rules” – had failed to follow the rules himself. She warned him against future “unacceptable” behaviour.

Sky News has contacted Mr Spiro for comment.

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Sean Combs faces fresh lawsuit

Meanwhile, in a new lawsuit filed on 20 December, a woman has accused Combs of drugging and sexually assaulting her in 2006 at a New York party, which she attended after winning a radio station contest.

The woman, who was 23 at the time, said she felt sick and fell unconscious after being served two premade drinks by waitresses, later waking up in hospital with a ripped shirt, missing underwear and shoes, and no recollection of how she got there.

The suit said the woman was left with pain in her vagina for around a week, which she believed was from rough intercourse.

She also said an unknown woman with a New York number later called her, allegedly threatening her to keep quiet.

Combs’ attorney has called the allegations “pure fiction”.

As well as Combs, the woman is also suing Bad Boy Entertainment Holdings, which Combs founded; Atlantic Records, which she said facilitated the event; Mike Savas, a promoter for Atlantic at the time; Delta Airlines, which flew her to New York; KKJamz 105.3, the radio station she said held the contest; and the Roger Smith Hotel, where she stayed.

Ten “John and Jane Does” are also listed as defendants.

Donald Trump says that when he takes power next month he will direct the US Justice Department to “vigorously pursue” the death penalty.

The US president-elect, 78, said he would do so to protect Americans from what he called “violent rapists, murderers and monsters”.

Mr Trump was responding to President Joe Biden’s decision to commute the sentences of almost all federal inmates on death row – whom Mr Trump called “37 of the worst killers in our country”.

“When you hear the acts of each, you won’t believe that he did this. Makes no sense,” Mr Trump posted on his social media platform Truth Social.

“Relatives and friends are further devastated. They can’t believe this is happening!”

He continued: “As soon as I am inaugurated, I will direct the Justice Department to vigorously pursue the death penalty to protect American families and children from violent rapists, murderers, and monsters.

“We will be a Nation of Law and Order again!”

President Biden, 82, announced on Monday that he would reduce the sentences of 37 of the 40 federal death row prisoners to life in prison without the possibility of parole, saying he was “guided by my conscience and my experience as a public defender”.

The three others the president did not spare are Robert Bowers, who fatally shot 11 people at a Pittsburgh synagogue in 2018; Dylann Roof, who gunned down nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who carried out a 2013 bombing at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured almost 300 others.

‘I condemn these murderers’

Despite sparing the lives of 37, Mr Biden added: “Make no mistake: I condemn these murderers, grieve for the victims of their despicable acts, and ache for all the families who have suffered unimaginable and irreparable loss.”

During Mr Trump’s first term in office between 2017 and 2021, the US Justice Department put 13 federal inmates to death.

He has since said he would like to expand capital punishment to include child rapists, migrants who kill US citizens and law enforcement officers, and those convicted of drug and human trafficking.

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Mr Biden, who ran for president opposing the death penalty, put federal executions on hold when he took office in January 2021.

His latest decisions come after a coalition of criminal justice advocacy groups, former prosecutors and business leaders wrote letters to the White House asking for Mr Biden to commute the sentences ahead of Mr Trump’s inauguration on 20 January.

Pope Francis also appealed to Mr Biden, who is Catholic, to reduce the sentences to imprisonment.

Unlike executive orders, clemency decisions cannot be reversed by a president’s successor, although the death penalty can be sought more aggressively in future cases.