Boston Marathon Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Found Guilty

Boston Marathon Bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Found Guilty
Author

BBC Report

Release Date

Tuesday, August 4, 2015

Share

The man accused of bombing the Boston Marathon in 2013 has been found guilty of all 30 charges that he faced, many of which carry the death penalty.

The jury in Massachusetts will now decide what sentence 21-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will receive.

Three people were killed and more than 260 injured when the bombs exploded at the finish line in April 2013.

His lawyers maintained he played a role in the attacks but said his older brother was the driving force.

A police officer was killed in the days following the attack as Tsarnaev and his brother, who also died, attempted to flee.

The verdict is still being read for other counts.

The decision was reached on Wednesday, after the jury deliberated for just over 12 hours spread over two days.

Tsarnaev kept his hands folded in front of him and looked down as the guilty verdicts were read.

The conviction was widely expected because his lawyer made the surprise admission during opening statements that he took part in the bombing.

That admission was part of a defence strategy to paint Tsarnaev's elder brother, Tamerlan, as the mastermind of the attack who influenced Tsarnaev into participating.
Prosecutors portrayed them as equal partners in a plan to "punish America" for wars in Muslim countries.

Tsarnaev is an ethnic Chechen. His family moved to the US about a decade before the bombings.

Latest Stories