BOSTON BOMBER SENTENCED TO DEATH FOR 2013 ATTACK
WASHINGTON: A US jury on Friday sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death for setting off bombs that killed three people at Boston marathon on April 15, 2013, along with his brother.
Tsarnaev sat stone-faced in court as the sentence was read. Though his lawyers had not spoken, an appeal does appear likely, as it does for most death sentences.
The same jury had last month found him guilty as charged on all 30 charges, 17 of which carried the death sentence. A death sentence had allowed all but a certainty thus.
Tsarnaev and his elder brother Tamerlan had set off two pressure-cooker bombs at the finish line of the marathon that went off killing three and injuring 264.
This was the first death penalty awarded in a case of terrorism post-9/11, The New York Times said, citing a government body that coordinates defense in death sentence cases.
The Tsarnaev brothers came to the US with their family in 2002.
Tamerlan, who was interested in boxing, drifted toward extremism, and even tried to join up with a terrorists group in Dagestan. Dzhokhar, on the other hand, adjusted well and friends described him an average American youngster.
Prosecutors described him as a cold-blooded, unrepentant jihadist. They opened the penalty phase of the trial with a picture of him giving the middle finger to the prison camera.
News channel ran an earlier video clip of him shopping for milk at a grocery store, immediately after setting off the the deadly bombs that left a trail of dead and injured innocents.