A jury found the “Boston bomber” Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty of using a weapon of mass destruction and all other counts related to the bombing at the Boston Marathon, according to initial reports.
The sentencing phase of the trial will decide if Tsarnaev gets the death penalty. This will include an entirely new set of deliberations.
Prosecutors brought 30 criminal counts against the 21-year-old Cambridge man related to the April 15, 2013 bombings that killed three and injured hundreds, including taking the limbs of 17. The counts ranged from those related to aiding and abetting his brother in the attack to destroying property to carjacking. Seventeen carried the possibility of the death penalty.
Even though defense lawyers admitted Tsarnaev’s involvement, saying “it was him,” he pleaded not guilty to all 30 counts.
“There’s little that occurred the week of April the 15th — the bombings, the murder of Officer Collier, the carjacking, the shootout in Watertown — that we dispute,” Tsarnaev’s defense attorney Judy Clarke said in the opening statements March 4.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers tried to portray him as a a victim of his brother’s radicalization, who was influenced by his older brother Tamerlan when he put two pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
“If not for Tamerlan, it would not have happened,” Clarke said in the closing arguments Monday.
In turn, prosecutors pointed to evidence that he planned the attack motivated by anger over the U.S. wars in Muslim countries. They also emphasized the fact that Tsarnaev set the bomb near an 8-year-old boy who was killed by the blast, all of which was caught on surveillance video.
Reporters live tweeted the prosecution’s closing arguments:
"He wanted to awake the mujahideen, the holy warriors, and so he chose Patriot's Day…when the eyes of the world would be upon Boston."
— Jim Armstrong (@JimArmstrongWBZ) April 6, 2015
"He chose a day when there would be civilians on the sidewalks. Because he wanted to make a point. He wanted to punish America."
— Jim Armstrong (@JimArmstrongWBZ) April 6, 2015
Unedited, raw video of the April 15 attack shows the explosion and the horrifying moments afterward. This video is graphic and may not be suitable for some.
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