Defence asks for delay in Boston trial
BOSTON: Lawyers for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the defendant in the Boston Marathon bombings, on Tuesday asked for a onemonth suspension in the trial, citing the parallels between the Boston bombings and last week’s terrorist attacks in France.
A delay “would allow some time for the extraordinary prejudice flowing from these events — and the comparison of those events to those at issue in this case — to diminish”, the lawyers wrote in a motion that included references to recent news reports of sleeper cells in France and the firebombing of a German newspaper.
The attacks in Paris began on the third of three days of jury selection in Boston last week. About 1,350 prospective jurors in the Mr Tsarnaev case filled out screening questionnaires; Judge George A O’Toole Jr of the US district court had planned to start the questioning of individual jurors tomorrow.
The request for a delay is not the defence team’s first: It had asked at least twice before for a delay, saying it was overwhelmed by the huge number of documents from the government. It also sought to move the trial out of Boston, saying Mr Tsarnaev could not get a fair trial there. All the requests were denied and jury selection began on Jan 5.
The defence motion on Tuesday cited numerous news media accounts that drew comparisons between the initial terrorist attack in Paris that killed 12 people and the 2013 marathon bombings, which killed three and wounded more than 260.
“The supposed parallels included the fact that the suspects were brothers, that they reportedly were influenced by the lectures and writings of Anwar al-Awlaki, that they were ‘homegrown’ terrorists and that they attacked civilians in a Western city,” the defence wrote.
Republican William Keating, was quoted as saying: “I’m watching what’s happening in Paris and I’m thinking of Watertown,” a reference to lockdowns of suburban neighbourhoods during sprawling manhunts to find the suspects.
“These parallels so widely expressed cannot be l ost on potential jurors,” t he defence wrote.