Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received the death penalty in federal court today for the 2013 marathon attack that killed three people in the crowd and a police officer days later.
Tsarnaev reportedly showed no emotion as the verdict was read, but smiled and gestured with finger pistols toward the jury as he was led out of the courtroom.
The jury of seven women and five men came to their decision in just over 14 hours as they weighed pages of mitigating and aggravating factors.
“Dzhokhar Tsarnaev coldly and callously perpetrated a terrorist attack that injured hundreds of Americans and ultimately took the lives of three individuals: Krystle Marie Campbell, a 29-year-old native of Medford; Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student from China; and Martin Richard, an 8-year-old boy from Dorchester who was watching the marathon with his family just a few feet from the second bomb,” Attorney General Loretta Lynch said in a statement. “In the aftermath of the attack, Tsarnaev and his brother murdered Sean Collier, a 27-year-old patrol officer on the MIT campus, extinguishing a life dedicated to family and service.”
“We know all too well that no verdict can heal the souls of those who lost loved ones, nor the minds and bodies of those who suffered life-changing injuries from this cowardly attack,” Lynch said. “But the ultimate penalty is a fitting punishment for this horrific crime and we hope that the completion of this prosecution will bring some measure of closure to the victims and their families.”
“We thank the jurors for their service, the people of Boston for their vigilance, resilience and support and the law enforcement community in Boston and throughout the country for their important work.”
The defense had argued that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev did commit the attacks, but was pressured to do so by his brother Tamerlan.
ISIS accounts on Twitter responded to the sentence. “May Allah accept our brother #DzhokharTsarnaev as martyr in Jannah. Ameen,” tweeted one who said it was his 80th account after Twitter suspensions.
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