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MASSACHUSETTS (USA): TSARNAEV GUILTY OF BOSTON BOMBING AND MAY FACE DEATH PENALTY
April 8, 2015: A federal jury in Boston found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty today in the 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon. The jury delivered guilty verdicts on all 30 counts he faced, most of which could result in a death penalty sentence.
The two shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs that exploded near the finish line on April 15, 2013, killed three spectators and wounded more than 260 other people.
Killed were Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Chinese graduate student at Boston University; Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant manager; and Martin Richard, the 8-year-old. Massachusetts Institute of Technology police Officer Sean Collier was shot and killed during the brothers' getaway attempt.
The jury will now decide whether the 21-year-old former college student should be sentenced to death or receive life in prison. Tsarnaev's conviction was widely expected, given his lawyer's startling admission during opening statements that he took part in the bombing. But the lawyer also argued that Tsarnaev's older brother, Tamerlan, masterminded the attack and enlisted his then-19-year-old brother to help. Prosecutors portrayed the brothers as full partners in a plan to retaliate against the U.S. for its wars in Muslim countries. (Sources: Associated Press, 08/04/2015)
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