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After two years of silence, and sitting through his trial looking bored and impassive, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has been sentenced to death for the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings, rose in court Wednesday to apologise for his deeds.
“I would like to now apologise to the victims, to the survivors,” he told a Boston court shortly before being formally sentenced to death for the bombing. “I want to ask forgiveness of Allah and his creation.”
He added: “I am sorry for the lives I have taken, for the suffering that I have caused you, for the damage I have done -- irreparable damage.
“In case there is any doubt, I am guilty of this attack, along with my brother,” Tsarnaev said, standing at the defence table, referring to his older brother Tamerlan, killed during the manhunt following the bombing.
To the victims attending the hearing at the US district court, he said: “I pray for your relief, for your healing.”
Tsarnaev’s voice trembled slightly and there were hints of the accent of his native Russia as he read from a prepared statement.
Judge George O’Toole told Tsarnaev he had embraced a cruel God, heeded the jihadist “siren song” and engaged in “monstrous self-deception” to carry out the bombings. The judge quoted works by Shakespeare and Verdi as he formally imposed the death sentence -- a decision already made by a federal jury.
“Whenever your name is mentioned, what will be remembered is the evil you have done," O'Toole said. "No one will remember that your teachers were fond of you. No one will mention that your friends found you funny and fun to be with. No one will say you were a talented athlete or that you displayed compassion in being a bBest buddy or that you showed more respect to your women friends than your male peers did.
“What will be remembered is that you murdered and maimed innocent people and that you did it willfully and intentionally. You did it on purpose.”
After the sentencing, US Attorney Carmen Ortiz said she was more struck by what Tsanaev didn’t say, particularly his failure to denounce terrorism and Islamic extremism.
Survivor Lynn Julian told reporters outside court that Tsarnaev’s ‘Oscar-worthy’ speech lacked sincerity. “I regret ever wanting to hear him speak,” she said.
Tsarnaev is the first person to be handed a death sentence in a federal terrorism case since the September 11, 2001, attacks. He and older brother Tamerlan, who died while fleeing police, set off two bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15, 2013.
Two women and an 8-year-old boy were killed and more than 260 other people were injured. The blasts left 17 people -- all active, outdoorsy people -- amputees. A fourth person, an MIT police officer, was killed during the hunt for the Tsarnaevs.
Tsarnaev’s death sentence will be automatically appealed and it could be a decade before the execution is carried out at the federal prison he will be sent to in Indiana.