Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Gets Death Penalty in Boston Marathon Bombing

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

THE NEW YORK TIMES: BOSTON — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sat stone-faced in a federal court here on Friday as a jury sentenced him to death for setting off bombs at the 2013 Boston Marathon that killed three people and injured hundreds more in the worst terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.

The jury of seven women and five men, which last month convicted Mr. Tsarnaev, 21, of all 30 charges against him, 17 of which carry the death penalty, took more than 14 hours to reach its decision.

In reaching its decision, the jury found that Mr. Tsarnaev had shown no remorse for actions, and it rejected the defense argument that his older brother, Tamerlan, had brainwashed him into joining in the bombings.

It was the first time a federal jury had sentenced a terrorist to death in the post-Sept. 11 era, according to Kevin McNally, director of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, which coordinates the defense in capital punishment cases.

Prosecutors portrayed Mr. Tsarnaev, who immigrated to Cambridge, Mass., from the Russian Caucasus with his family in 2002, as a coldblooded, unrepentant jihadist who sought to kill innocent Americans in retaliation for the deaths of innocent Muslims in American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. » | Katharine Q. Seelye | Friday, May 15, 2015

Boston Bomb Trail: Answers in Russia's Islamist South
The Boston bombing suspects lived in Russia's terror-riddled South before moving to the United States. Radical Muslims are still fighting for control of the region.

Boston Bombing Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Buried in Undisclosed Location
THE GUARDIAN: Police: 'courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide assistance to properly bury the deceased'

The Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in an undisclosed location outside the city of Worcester, police said on Thursday, after a week-long search for a community willing to take the body. Sergeant Kerry Hazelhurst said the body was no longer in Worcester, east of Boston, and was now entombed. Police did not specify where the body was taken.

"As a result of our public appeal for help, a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased," Worcester police said in a statement.

Tsarnaev's body had been at the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors. Its director, Peter Stefan, had said that he could not find a community willing to take the body, including Cambridge, where the family had lived for a decade. Tsarnaev's uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, had custody of the body.

Katherine Russell, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's wife, had wanted his body turned over to his side of the family, which claimed it. Nineteen days after his death, cemeteries were still refusing to take his remains and government officials deflected questions about where he could be buried. On Wednesday, police in Worcester pleaded for a resolution, saying they were spending tens of thousands of dollars to protect the funeral home where the body was being kept, amid protests.

An expert in US burial law said the resistance to Tsarnaev's burial was unprecedented in a country that has always found a way to put to rest its notorious killers, from Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated president John F Kennedy in 1963, to Adam Lanza, who shot dead 20 children and six adults at a Newtown, Connecticut, elementary school last year. In Russia, officials would not comment after Tsarnaev's mother said authorities would not allow her son's body into the country, so she could bury him in her native Dagestan. » | Associated Press in Boston | Thursday, May 09, 2013

Ann Coulter: Bombing Suspect's Wife Should Be Jailed For Wearing Hijab

GOP Congressman: Obama’s ‘Political Correctness’ On Islam Led To Boston Bombings

THINK PROGRESS: Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) suggested on Friday that the FBI was unable to ask deceased Boston marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev about Islam during its 2011 interview with him due to President Obama’s “political correctness,” thus allowing the bombing to take place.

Gohmert said on the House floor that the Obama administration has prevented intelligence officials from discussing Islam. “It was in that 9/11 commission report, before this administration took over and implemented political correctness,” he said, arguing the FBI’s training manuals were “systematically purged” in 2011 to conform to Obama’s worldview.

Obama’s whitewashing of Islam, Gohmert hinted, allowed the Tsarnaev brothers to slip through the fingers of the FBI and set off bombs in Boston: » | Hayes Brown | Friday, April 26, 2013

'Why Did They Need to Kill My Son?' - Tsarnaev's Mother
The mother of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects claims she has seen video which proves her son Tamerlan was still alive after he was detained. Police had earlier said the eldest brother was run over by his younger sibling, who was making his getaway. RT's Tom Barton told us more about what was said by both brother's parents at a press-conference in Dagestan.

Not 'Brainwashed': American Women Who Converted to Islam Speak Out
NBC NEWS: When an American convert to Islam was revealed as the wife of the dead Boston bombing suspect, Lauren Schreiber wasn’t surprised at what came next.

Comments from former acquaintances and complete strangers immediately suggested that 24-year-old Katherine Russell, a New England doctor’s daughter, must have been coerced and controlled by her husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died last week in a firefight with police.

“She was a very sweet woman, but I think kind of brainwashed by him,” reported the Associated Press, quoting Anne Kilzer, a Belmont, Mass., woman who said she knew Russell and her 3-year-old daughter.

That kind of assumption isn’t new to Schreiber, 26, a Greenbelt, Md., woman who became a Muslim in 2010.

“The moment you put on a hijab, people assume that you’ve forfeited your free will,” says Schreiber, who favors traditional Islamic dress.

The Boston terror attack and the questions about whether Russell knew about her husband’s deadly plans have renewed stereotypes and misconceptions that U.S. women who have chosen that faith say they want to dispel.

“It’s not because somebody made me do this,” explains Schreiber, who converted after a college study-abroad trip to West Africa. “It’s what I choose to do and I’m happy.” » | JoNel Aleccia, Senior Writer, NBC News | Friday, April 26, 2013

Suspects' Mom Not Sure What to Think
Zubeidat Tsarnaev, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's mother tells CNN's Nick Paton Walsh in in Makhachkala, Dagestan.

Putin on Boston Blasts: We Suffered from Terrorists, Called 'Insurgents' by West

Egyptian Cleric: Boston Bombing Was Meant to Deliver a Message; Similar Attacks Expected in France
Egyptian Salafi Cleric Murgan Salem: Boston Bombing Was Meant to Deliver a Message; Similar Attacks Expected in France . Al-Tahrir TV (Egypt) - April 16, 2013

US Team to Speak to Boston Suspects' Parents

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Read the article here | Lyn Berry | Associated Press | Moscow | Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Former US Attorney General Says Boston Attack Was 'Jihad'
Michael Mukasey speaks out

US Must Decide If Immigrants From Countries Where Radical Islam Is Taught Are Still Welcome Here

FOX NEWS: The last time there was a terrorist attack on America, we got the Department of Homeland Security and the Transportation Security Administration. Each entity has spent billions to keep us safe, but neither could stop two brothers, Tamerlan, a permanent resident, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a newly minted U.S. citizen, who lived in America and, reportedly, became radicalized jihadists, from killing and maiming innocent people at the Boston Marathon last week.

According to Dana Priest and William M. Arkin of The Washington Post, "Some 1,271 government organizations and 1,931 private companies work on programs related to counterterrorism, homeland security and intelligence in about 10,000 locations across the United States. ... An estimated 854,000 people, nearly 1.5 times as many people as live in Washington, D.C., hold top-secret security clearances. ... In Washington and the surrounding area, 33 building complexes for top-secret intelligence work are under construction or have been built since September 2001. Together they occupy the equivalent of almost three Pentagons or 22 U.S. Capitol buildings -- about 17 million square feet of space."

All of that failed to prevent the Boston bombings. The massive manpower, sophisticated equipment and money could not stop the Tsarnaevs from constructing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), including "pressure cooker" bombs.

Despite a domestic army of federal, state and local forces, the suspects managed to evade capture for days until Tamerlan was killed in a shootout and David Henneberry, a Watertown resident, found Dzhokhar hiding in his boat in his backyard. Henneberry called 911 and the wounded suspect was taken into custody.

The media have reported on the backgrounds of the two men. The FBI interviewed the older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, at the request of a foreign government, probably Russia, which expressed concern about his ties to Chechen extremists. The FBI, reportedly, could do nothing about Tamerlan under current U.S. law because there was no direct evidence of a terrorist plot.

How much confidence should Americans have in their government for keeping us safe when two young men can wreak havoc, shutting down a major city? » | Cal Thomas | FoxNews.com | Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Charged with Using Weapon of Mass Destruction
Nineteen-year-old suspect could face death penalty after prosecutors charge him over Boston marathon bombing that left three people dead

Read the article here | Karen McVeigh in New York and Dan Roberts in Washington | Tuesday, April 23, 2013

Warning to UK On Its 'Open Door to Fanatics': Russian Government Says MI5 Should Watch 'Extremist Islamic' Exiles from the Country in Wake of Boston Bombing
MAIL ONLINE: MI5 should play far closer attention to immigrants, said security specialist / Igor Korotchenkosaid has claimed Britain has created a ‘ticking timebomb’ / Said some admitted as asylum-seekers, and are enemies of Vladimir Putin

Britain is at risk from 'extremist Islamic' exiles from the North Caucasus who have been allowed to live in the UK, claimed an advisor to the Russian government last night.

The lessons from the Boston marathon bombing is that MI5 should play far closer attention to these immigrants, some who have been admitted as asylum-seekers, and are seen as enemies of Vladimir Putin, said security specialist Igor Korotchenko.

He has claimed Britain has created a ‘ticking timebomb’ for allowing radicalised Muslims into this country.

He claimed an FBI 'failure' to heed Russian secret services warnings about Tamerlan Tsarnaev could be repeated in Britain where intelligence co-operation with Moscow has been curtailed due to the diplomatic dispute over the 2006 'murder' of Alexander Litvinenko in London. » | Will Stewart | Monday, April 22, 2013

Video Glorifying Jihad in Syria Linked to on Social Media Account of Boston Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev | The Internet - June 29, 2012

Bilad Al-Sham [Al-Shaam] »

Sudden Religiosity And Mysterious Trips: Clues That Build Up Boston Attacks Case
THE OBSERVER: Tsarnaev brothers fit the key indicators of potential threat: young, male, first-generation migrants with 'identity issues'

Security services have learned much about Islamic extremist violence in recent years. "Profiling" has been rejected as too blunt to be of much use, but it's clear that it almost exclusively involves men, aged 18 to 30, and often first generation immigrants with what are broadly and inadequately dubbed "identity issues". A key indicator of potential threat is also a close family member already involved in extremism. Those apparently responsible for the Boston bombings fit all these parameters: two brothers, aged 19 and 26, who spent much of their lives in the US but were clearly deeply attracted to the culture of their Chechen parents.

Beyond the "who?" is the "how?", and the counter-terrorist community have also learned to watch for signs such as a sudden increase in religious practice and unexplained trips overseas to south or central Asia. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two, travelled last year to Russia and, it is thought, Dagestan, where he and his family once lived. He had also become more obviously devout, a family friend told the Boston Globe. A neighbour said he had abandoned sharp western clothes.

Terrorists are not loners either. Tamerlan was married and had a small child. Mohammad Sidique Khan, the leader of the 7/7 bombers, left a young daughter. Militancy is, after all, a social activity. Terrorists are not unhinged, studies have shown, nor necessarily badly integrated, though in this case Tamerlan appears to have had trouble making friends in the US. Most believe, however misguidedly, that their deeds will be hailed after their deaths. » | Jason Burke | Saturday, April 20, 2013

Boston Bomb Suspect Cannot Speak as Doctors Treat Throat Wounds
THE SUNDAY TELEGRAPH: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the Boston bombing suspect, remains unable to speak as he undergoes treatment for a gunshot wound to the throat in hospital, officials have said as inquiries focus on what turned two young men into Islamic terrorists.

The 19-year-old is "serious but stable. I think not able to communicate yet," Deval Patrick, the Massachusetts governor said after attending a tribute to the victims of Monday's bomb attacks that left three dead and about 180 injured.

CBS television quoted investigators as saying that Tsarnaev suffered two serious wounds and had lost a lot of blood. It said investigators had speculated that one wound in the back of his neck could have been a suicide attempt.

"They say it appears from the wound that he might have stuck a gun in his mouth and fired," said the report, which added that Tsarnaev could understand what those around him were saying.

Tsarnaev was detained on Friday. His elder brother Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police earlier in the day during a massive manhunt.

Gov Patrick said he hopes the teenaged suspect survives. "We have a million questions and those questions need to be answered," he added. » | Damien McElroy, and Philip Sherwell and Nick Allen | Sunday, April 21, 2013

Boston Bomb Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Clings to Life

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Read the ABC News article here | Anthony Castellano | Saturday, April 20, 2013

The Saudi Connection Linking the Boston Marathon to September 11
HAARETZ: Albeit the dimensions are somewhat smaller, but the pain, fear, and anger are the same. America has again been caught off guard by foreign terrorists seeking to sow destruction and death.

Almost 12 years have passed since that “great tragedy,” the attacks of September 11, and the United States has yet again experienced a national tragedy. Albeit the dimensions are somewhat smaller, but the pain, fear, and anger are the same. America has again been caught off guard by foreign terrorists seeking to sow destruction and death.

In September 2001 the terrorists were Saudis (15 out of 19) and Egyptian. This time, the culprits where to Chechen brothers, Tamerlan and Dzokhar Tsarnaev. If it turns out that their motivations were religious, the context of their country of origin will not be coincidental. Until now there has not been any testament from the two, neither written nor filmed – which is generally common practice in the case of such attacks – nor has there been any claim of responsibility from Al-Qaida leader Ayman al-Zawahri. Al-Qaida also tends to take responsibility for attacks to which it was unconnected at the operational level, if it shares an ideological bond with those responsible. Despite this, it is very likely that there is a strong, ideological and operational connection between the attacks of 2001 and 2013.

Back in the early nineties, Chechnya and neighboring Dagestan became a stronghold in the Caucasus region for the radical stream of Sunni Islam, Wahhabism. Mosques and madrasas were opened; training camps for young combatants were established to prepare them for the “jihad against the infidels.” Until this day, the teachings of Said Buryatsky, a charismatic, Wahhabist radical, are among the most downloaded files in Chechnya.

This radical Islamist movement was founded in the Arabian Peninsula and adopted by tribes that founded a kingdom in the 18 century, which later became Saudi Arabia. This puritan, aggressive movement is considered by orthodox Muslims as heretic. Many approached it with suspicion and rejected it, but the situation changed once the “black gold” began to flow from Saudi Arabia’s soil. Thus the Wahhabists gained their much-wanted recognition, and began to send money to religious institutions around the world, including in Chechnya and Dagestan. » | Ksenia Svetlova * | Saturday, April 20, 2013

* Ksenia Svetlova is a writer and analyst on Arab affairs for Channel 9, and has a doctorate from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Middle Eastern Studies.