boston marathon Prosecutor: Bomber meant to terrorize US

Associated Press

BOSTON

As he planted a backpack containing a bomb near a group of children, Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made a cold-blooded decision aimed at punishing America for its wars in Muslim countries, a federal prosecutor told the jury during closing arguments Monday at Tsarnaev’s death penalty trial.

“This was a cold, calculated terrorist act. This was intentional. It was bloodthirsty. It was to make a point,” Aloke Chakravarty said. “It was to tell America that ‘We will not be terrorized by you anymore. We will terrorize you.’”

Defense attorney Judy Clarke countered by arguing, as she did at the trial’s outset, that Tsarnaev took part in the attack but did so under the malevolent influence of his now-dead older brother, Tamerlan. Clarke repeatedly referred to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev — then 19 — as a “kid” and a “teenager.”

“If not for Tamerlan, it would not have happened,” Clarke said.

The jury is expected to begin deliberating this morning in the case against Tsarnaev, 21, almost two years after the twin bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and wounded more than 260.

If Tsarnaev is convicted — and that is considered a near certainty, given his lawyer’s admission — the jury then will begin hearing evidence on whether he should get life in prison or a death sentence.