A US federal jury sentenced, this Friday, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by lethal injection, considering he showed no visible signs of remorse for his part in the infamous Boston Marathon bombings that cost three people their lives and badly injured hundreds more, on April 2013. The sentence was announced after more than 14 hours of deliberation by the same federal jury that, last month, found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of all the 30 charges brought against him, relating to homegrown terrorism, use of weapons of mass destruction and the fatal shooting of a policeman during the four-day manhunt that ensued.
This decision came a little over two years after a pair of pressure-cooker bombs, hidden in backpacks, exploded near the Boston marathon's finish line at Boylston Street, killing three spectators and badly injuring an estimated 260 others. Shortly after, the FBI identified Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev as the perpetrators and during a four-day manhunt, the two Chechen brothers carjacked an SUV and exchanged fire with the authorities several times. A police officer was killed along with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was shot several times. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, was later found hiding inside a boat in Watertown, Massachussets and arrested by police.
During the initial interrogations after his capture, Mr Tsarnaev confessed to planting the bombs along with his older brother older and revealed they had acted on their own, being motivated by extremist Islamist beliefs and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
He would also allege that his older brother was the mastermind behind the plan. His defense attorney, Judy Clarke, never denied his role on the day in question, since the beginning of trial, but asked jurors to spare his life portraying him as a troubled teenager, just 19 years old at the time, from a dysfunctional family who came under the influence of his radicalized older brother, Tamerlan.
The jury heard testimony from more than 150 badly injured victims and sentenced the now 21-year old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to the capital punishment. According to reports, he offered no visible reaction as the sentence was being read and has now been transported to a high-Security prison in Indiana where he will await execution.
