Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is no longer an alleged suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing of 2013. Seven days before the two-year anniversary of the heinous act of terror, a jury of his peers have found him guilty on all 30 counts.
Reports MSN:
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing by a federal jury that now must decide whether the 21-year-old former college student should be executed.
Tsarnaev kept his hands folded in front of him and looked down at the defense table as listened to the verdict, reached after a day and a half of deliberations. He was found guilty on charges that included conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction — offenses punishable by death.
His conviction was practically a foregone conclusion, given his lawyer’s startling admission during opening statements that Tsarnaev carried out the attack with his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan.
The two shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs that exploded near the finish line on April 15, 2013, killed three spectators and wounded more than 260 other people, turning the traditionally celebratory home stretch of the world-famous race into a scene of carnage and putting the city on edge for days.
In the next phase of the trial, the jury will hear evidence on whether Tsarnaev should get the death penalty or spend the rest of his life in prison.
In a bid to save Tsarnaev from a death sentence, defense attorney Judy Clarke has argued that Tsarnaev, then 19, fell under the influence of his radicalized brother. Tamerlan, 26, died when he was shot by police and run over by his brother during a chaotic getaway attempt days after the bombing.
“If not for Tamerlan, it would not have happened,” Clarke told the jury during closing arguments.
Killed were Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student at Boston University; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager; and Martin Richard, the 8-year-old. Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier was shot and killed during the brothers’ getaway attempt.
Allow the graphic images in the gallery below to serve as a stark reminder of the extent of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s evil.
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Photo: WCVB Channel 5 Boston
