Attacker faces 29 criminal charges

: Prosecutors have brought 29 counts of federal crimes, including those related to hate crimes, against a white supremacist who gunned down 11 worshippers at a synagogue in Pittsburgh in what has been called the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the US.

Robert Bowers, 46, was charged with 11 counts of obstructing exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death, 11 counts of using firearms to commit murder, four counts of obstructing officers and wounding them, and three of use and discharge of firearms. “The crimes of violence are based upon the federal civil rights laws prohibiting hate crimes,” federal prosecutors said in a statement.

Police began identifying the victims on Sunday.

“All these Jews need to die,” Bowers had yelled as he shot into the congregation gathered for the regular Sabbath services and bris, a baby-naming ceremony. He had used an AR-15 assault rifle and four handguns to kill 11 people and injure six, including four police officers.

“We believe this is the deadliest attack on the Jewish community in the history of the United States,” said the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), a group that has monitored and battled anti-Semitism in the United States for over a century. Anti-Semitism has been on the rise in the US, with related incidents and instances shooting up by 57% in 2017 over the previous year, the league has said in a recent report.

Bowers’s social media posts showed him to be a virulent antiSemite, who railed against the Jewish people, using the vilest ethnic slurs, as he had yelled out during the attack.

On social media site Gab, a Facebook-like platform popular with right-wing extremists and conservatives, he said: “Jews are the children of Satan”. He had used well known Neo-Nazi symbols and codes on his background photos, according to news reports. His account has been taken down by the site.

Hours before launching the deadly attack on Saturday, the gunman posted on a social media site: “HIAS (Hebrew Immigration Aid Society) likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can’t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I’m going in.”

Founded in 1881 in New York to help Jews fleeing persecution, HIAS has grown to work with refugees and victims of persecution around the world.

Bowers had railed in some posts against HIAS, accusing it of helping the caravans of asylumseekers headed for the US from Latin America.