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Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Sentenced to Death by Execution 1 Month After Jurors Found Him Guilty of 2013 Terror Attack

Boston bombings
Runners continue to run towards the finish line of the Boston Marathon as an explosion erupts near the finish line of the race in this photo exclusively licensed to Reuters by photographer Dan Lampariello after he took the photo in Boston, Massachusetts, April 15, 2013. Two simultaneous explosions ripped through the crowd at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing at least two people and injuring dozens on a day when tens of thousands of people pack the streets to watch the world famous race. |
Boston bombings
A woman is comforted by a man near a triage tent set up for the Boston Marathon after explosions went off at the 117th Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, April 15, 2013. |
Boston bombings
Suspects wanted for questioning in relation to the Boston Marathon bombing April 15, later identified as Dzhokhar (L) and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, are seen in handout photo released through the FBI website, April 18, 2013. |
Boston bombings
Blood and debris are seen on the sidewalk along Boylston Street a day after two explosions hit the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, April 16, 2013. Two bombs packed with ball bearings tore through crowds near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three people and triggering a massive hunt for those behind an attack the White House said would be treated as "an act of terror." |
Boston bombings
Blood and debris are seen on the sidewalk along Boylston Street a day after two explosions hit the Boston Marathon in Boston, Massachusetts, April 16, 2013. Two bombs packed with ball bearings tore through crowds near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday, killing three people and triggering a massive hunt for those behind an attack the White House said would be treated as "an act of terror." |
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A jury of five men and seven women sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death by execution on Friday after finding him guilty on 30 federal charges last month for his role in the 2013 Boston Marathon bombings.

The April 15, 2013, bombings killed three people and left over 260 others wounded.

The death penalty was delivered by the same jurors who convicted Tsarnaev last month on 30 counts of carjacking, robbery and using weapons of mass destruction resulting in death. Only 17 of the charges, however, carried the possibility of the death penalty, for which the jury sentenced him to death on six of the counts.

The 12 jurors handed down the death sentence for Tsarnaev for his role in killing Martin Richard and Lingzi Lu, a 23-year-old Boston University graduate student.

According to the Boston Globe, jurors decided not to sentence Tsarnaev to death for the two victims who were killed by his brother, Tamerlan, which include Krystle Campbell, 29, and MIT Police Officer Sean A. Collier, 27, "whom the defense argued was shot to death by Tamerlan, not Dzhokhar."

Tsarnaev is said to have shown little emotion as he heard the verdict, according to USA Today.

"Tsarnaev looked straight ahead, showing no emotion, as the sentence was read. Jurors wiped away tears as the judge thanked them for their service."

Boston bombings
Judy Clarke (L), defense attorney for Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, arrives for a day of jury deliberations in the sentencing phase of Tsarnaev's trial at the federal courthouse in Boston, Massachusetts, May 15, 2015. The jury in the Boston Marathon bombing trial on Friday began its third day of deliberations over whether Tsarnaev should be sentenced to death or to life in prison without the possibility of release. |

The sentence arrived after the jury had listened to the testimonies of 63 witnesses and deliberated for over 14 hours.

Jurors weighed whether Tsarnaev should face life in prison without parole or death. Further, the group was tasked with considering several factors, including whether or not Tsarnaev was cold and calculating, as prosecutors contended, or if the 21-year-old was under the influence of his older brother, among other things.

Boston Bombings Trial, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is pictured in this handout photo presented as evidence. Tsarnaev was heavily influenced by al Qaeda literature and lectures, some of which was found on his laptop, a counterterrorism expert testified at his trial. |

In handing Tsarnaev the death penalty, it appears as though jurors rejected the defense's efforts to prove that Tsarnaev's older brother was the mastermind of the attack.

U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. told the jury, "You can and you should be justly proud of your service in this case," USA Today reported.

Friday marks the first time a federal jury has sentenced a terrorist to death in the post-Sept. 11 era, said Kevin McNally, a director of the Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel Project, according to the The New York Times.

In a previous interview with The Christian Post in April 2013, Angelica Vasquez, then a 22-year-old student at Boston College who attended the marathon and witnessed the horror firsthand because she was seated across the street from the explosion, described the explosions.

Vasquez told CP that she initially assumed fireworks were going off, but realized she was wrong when her boyfriend and former Israeli soldier grabbed her and told her to wait as he anticipated another explosion.

"We got to our bleacher seats and we stood in the middle section and all of a sudden we heard a huge bang that felt like an impact or slight jerk. Everyone was confused," she said. "Then, all of a sudden, the second bomb went off and glass from the buildings shattered everywhere and that's when I knew we were under attack."

The Boston Globe reported Friday that Tsarnaev arrived in the U.S. with his family when he was 9 years old. And during the trial, "jurors heard from his teachers in Cambridge that as a young boy, he was an A student, smart, popular, and kind."

"But jurors also heard about Tsarnaev's upbringing in a dysfunctional immigrant Chechen family ... And an expert on Chechnya described how that country's struggles for independence became intertwined over the last two decades with the global jihad movement by Islamic militants."

The Globe also reported that Tamerlan became "obsessed" with jihad after his parents returned to Russia in 2012, and was "the only adult figure in [Dzhokhar's] life."

During the manhunt for the two brothers that shut down the Boston metropolitan area Dzhokhar was eventually found badly injured hiding in a privately-owned boat in Watertown, Massachusetts. His brother, Tamerlan, died earlier during a shootout with police.

Boston bombings
A blood-stained message that prosecutors say Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote on the inside of a boat is seen with bullet holes in an undated evidence picture shown to jurors in Boston, March 10, 2015. Tsarnaev, 21, is accused of killing three people and injuring 264 with a pair of homemade bombs at the race's crowded finish line on April 15, 2013, as well as fatally shooting a police officer three days later as he and his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev tried to flee the city. |

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