Friday, May 17, 2013
Newsday
MELVILLE, N.Y.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left a “deathbed” note scrawled inside the hull of the boat in which he was captured, claiming he and his older brother set off bombs at the Boston Marathon as retribution for America’s attacks on Muslims in Iraq and Afghanistan, a law-enforcement source said Thursday.
The note said the victims of the April 15 attack — three dead and more than 260 injured — were essentially collateral damage, the source said.
Investigators believe a badly wounded Tsarnaev, 19, thought he was dying when he scrawled it, the source said. “He seemed to consider it a type of deathbed letter,” the source said.
The source said the note was stronger evidence against Tsarnaev than similar statements he made to the FBI in his hospital room. Those statements were made before he was advised of his rights and could be ruled inadmissible as evidence at a trial, the source said.
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