Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: Supreme Court upholds death sentence for "Boston bombers"

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Court drawing by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (archive image): »Heinous crimes committed«

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Jane Flavell Collins / AP / dpa

The “Boston bomber” Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now threatened with execution after all.

The US Supreme Court has ruled that the death penalty previously imposed in the trial of the Islamist bombing of the Boston marathon in 2013 was lawful.

An appeals court overturned the death sentence against the native Chechen in 2020, arguing, among other things, that the trial had not ensured that the jury had been impartial towards Tsarnaev.

The Supreme Court reversed this decision in its decision.

"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev committed heinous crimes," says the Supreme Court.

The constitution nevertheless guarantees him a fair trial before an impartial jury.

He got that.

The judgment of the Court of Appeal is therefore set aside.

Killed three people

In April 2013, Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan detonated two explosive devices made with pressure cookers at the finish line of the marathon in Boston, Massachusetts.

Three people - including an eight-year-old boy - were killed and 260 people injured.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a police officer were killed in a day-long chase.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested shortly after the attack, seriously injured.

He confessed to the crime and is now in a maximum security prison.

Tsarnaev could be sentenced to death, although Massachusetts had abolished the death penalty in the early 1980s because he was tried under federal law.

ptz/dpa