Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apologized to his victims for the first time at a highly emotional court hearing on Wednesday, during which he was formally sentenced to death for the 2013 attacks.
The US citizen of Chechen descent was sentenced to death on six counts for perpetrating the Boston Marathon bombings, one of the bloodiest assaults on US soil since the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the US.
“I would like to now apologize to the victims and to the survivors,” the 21-year-old former university student said in his first public remarks since the April 15, 2013, bombings that killed three people.
Photo: AFP
“I am guilty,” he said in a slight Russian accent, standing pale and thin in a dark blazer. “Let there be no doubt about that.”
“I am sorry for the lives I have taken, for the suffering, the damage that I have done,” he said, couching his remarks in the name of Allah and asking for God’s forgiveness.
Judge George O’Toole officially imposed the death sentence, which had been reached unanimously by a 12-person jury on May 15 after prosecutors painted Tsarnaev as a remorseless terrorist.
“I sentence you to the penalty of death by execution,” O’Toole told Tsarnaev, before he was led away by US marshals.
Tsarnaev will eventually sit on federal death row in Terre Haute, Indiana, but prosecutors say he could be sent first to the US’ only “super-max” prison, ADX Florence, in Colorado.
Defense lawyer Judy Clarke told the court that Tsarnaev had offered to plead guilty last year, but Wednesday’s remarks were the first time that her client had expressed any remorse in public.
Survivors were divided on whether his apology was genuine.
Lynn Julian said his remarks “were sort of shocking” and denied that he had shown proper remorse or regret.
“A sincere apology would’ve been nice,” she told reporters.
However, Henry Borgard, who was a student on his way home from work when he was injured in the bombings, was one of the few to forgive and said that he had been “really deeply moved” by Tsarnaev’s remarks.
“I have forgiven him. I have come to a place of peace and I genuinely hope that he does as well,” Borgard said. “I’m going to take it on faith that what he said was genuine.”
However, government prosecutors criticized Tsarnaev, who showed little emotion during the trial, for invoking Allah, and said he had not renounced terrorism or repudiated violent extremism.
On Wednesday, 24 victims and their relatives made harrowing impact statements, some in tears, as they described their grief, pain, financial problems and how the attacks brutally changed their lives.
Outside the court house, police arrested a young man who allegedly had a meat cleaver stashed in his car.
He is being investigated for any possible terrorism link, the FBI said.
The bombings wounded 264 people, including 17 who lost limbs, near the finish line at the city’s popular marathon.
AIR SUPPORT: The Ministry of National Defense thanked the US for the delivery, adding that it was an indicator of the White House’s commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act Deputy Minister of National Defense Po Horng-huei (柏鴻輝) and Representative to the US Alexander Yui on Friday attended a delivery ceremony for the first of Taiwan’s long-awaited 66 F-16C/D Block 70 jets at a Lockheed Martin Corp factory in Greenville, South Carolina. “We are so proud to be the global home of the F-16 and to support Taiwan’s air defense capabilities,” US Representative William Timmons wrote on X, alongside a photograph of Taiwanese and US officials at the event. The F-16C/D Block 70 jets Taiwan ordered have the same capabilities as aircraft that had been upgraded to F-16Vs. The batch of Lockheed Martin
US President Donald Trump yesterday announced sweeping "reciprocal tariffs" on US trading partners, including a 32 percent tax on goods from Taiwan that is set to take effect on Wednesday. At a Rose Garden event, Trump declared a 10 percent baseline tax on imports from all countries, with the White House saying it would take effect on Saturday. Countries with larger trade surpluses with the US would face higher duties beginning on Wednesday, including Taiwan (32 percent), China (34 percent), Japan (24 percent), South Korea (25 percent), Vietnam (46 percent) and Thailand (36 percent). Canada and Mexico, the two largest US trading
GRIDLOCK: The National Fire Agency’s Special Search and Rescue team is on standby to travel to the countries to help out with the rescue effort A powerful earthquake rocked Myanmar and neighboring Thailand yesterday, killing at least three people in Bangkok and burying dozens when a high-rise building under construction collapsed. Footage shared on social media from Myanmar’s second-largest city showed widespread destruction, raising fears that many were trapped under the rubble or killed. The magnitude 7.7 earthquake, with an epicenter near Mandalay in Myanmar, struck at midday and was followed by a strong magnitude 6.4 aftershock. The extent of death, injury and destruction — especially in Myanmar, which is embroiled in a civil war and where information is tightly controlled at the best of times —
China's military today said it began joint army, navy and rocket force exercises around Taiwan to "serve as a stern warning and powerful deterrent against Taiwanese independence," calling President William Lai (賴清德) a "parasite." The exercises come after Lai called Beijing a "foreign hostile force" last month. More than 10 Chinese military ships approached close to Taiwan's 24 nautical mile (44.4km) contiguous zone this morning and Taiwan sent its own warships to respond, two senior Taiwanese officials said. Taiwan has not yet detected any live fire by the Chinese military so far, one of the officials said. The drills took place after US Secretary
RSS