A jury has sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection. It rejected the other option of life in prison. Three
ADVERTISEMENTA jury has sentenced Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection. It rejected the other option of life in prison.
Three people were killed and more than 260 others injured when Dzhokhar and his brother Tamerlan placed shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the marathon in 2013.
A police officer was also killed during their attempted getaway.
Tamerlan died after a gunfight, which ended when Dzhokhar ran him over in a stolen car.
“Make no mistake. The defendant (Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) claimed to be acting on behalf of all Muslims. This was not a religious crime and it certainly does not reflect true Muslim beliefs,” said US Attorney Carmen Ortiz.
“It was a political crime, designed to intimidate and to coerce the United States.”
Prosecutors had described Dzhokhar, an ethnic Chechen, as an adherent of al Qaeda’s militant Islamist views.
The bombing was one of the highest profile attacks on US soil since 9-11.
“My mother and I think that NOW he will go away and we will be able to move on. Justice. In his own words, ‘an eye for an eye,’” victim Sydney Corcoran posted on Twitter. She was injured in the bombing and her mother lost both her legs.
The jury’s decision does not mean that the death penalty will be carried out immediately. A judge has to formally sentence Dzhokhar and there is likely to be an appeal.