America
Boston Marathon bomber found guilty
Washington, April 9
A federal jury on
Wednesday found 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a Kyrgyzstan-born US
citizen, guilty of all 30 counts related to the 2013 Boston Marathon
bombing attacks, which killed three people and maimed 264 others.
Since
death penalty is the possible punishment in 17 of the 30 counts, the
trial will move to the next phase where the same jury will weigh whether
Tsarnaev should be executed or serve life sentence in prison, Xinhua
reported.
Though Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty, from the beginning
of the trial, his defence team focused on convincing the jurors that he
was under the influence of his dominant older brother Tamerlan, a
defence tactic that was designed not to win the trial, but to avoid the
death penalty.
Since the trial began on March 4, prosecutors have called 92 witnesses while the defence summoned only four.
"He
was there," the leading defence lawyer Judy Clarke told jurors in her
closing arguments. "We are not asking you to excuse the conduct, but
let's look at the varying roles," said Clarke.
"You know who made these bombs. It was Tamerlan ...If not for Tamerlan, it (the bombing attacks) wouldn't have happened."
In
her 50-minute closing argument, Clarke repeatedly referred to the fact
that Tsarnaev was 19 and his older brother was 26 when the attacks
happened in 2013, and called Tsarnaev "a teenager." Tamerlan died
following a gunfight with police in Watertown, Massachusetts.