Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He is one of the two perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing, a domestic terrorist attack that killed three people and injured hundreds on April 15, 2013. Alongside his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, he detonated two pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the annual race in Boston. Following a massive, four-day manhunt that paralyzed the Greater Boston area, he was captured and later convicted on federal charges, receiving a death sentence which remains under legal appeal.

Early life and background

Dzhokhar Anzorovich Tsarnaev was born on July 22, 1993, in Tokmok, Kyrgyzstan, then part of the Soviet Union. His family are ethnic Chechens; his father, Anzor Tsarnaev, and mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, moved the family repeatedly, living in the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan before receiving asylum in the United States in 2002. The family settled in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Dzhokhar attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. He was described as a well-liked student and a promising wrestler, becoming a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2012. He later enrolled at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, though his academic performance declined significantly in the period leading up to the attacks, a shift investigators later attributed to the radicalizing influence of his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Boston Marathon bombing

On April 15, 2013, during the 117th Boston Marathon, Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev placed two homemade bombs containing shrapnel near the finish line on Boylston Street. The explosions, occurring just seconds apart, killed three spectators: Krystle Campbell, Lu Lingzi, and Martin Richard. The blasts injured an estimated 281 others, with many suffering traumatic amputations and severe wounds. The Federal Bureau of Investigation quickly identified the brothers as suspects through analysis of security footage and photographs from the scene. The attack was characterized by the U.S. Department of Justice as an act of Islamist extremism, motivated by the brothers' opposition to American foreign policy and the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Manhunt and capture

After the Federal Bureau of Investigation released images of the suspects on April 18, the brothers attempted to flee Boston. They carjacked a vehicle, revealing their identities to the driver, and later killed MIT police officer Sean Collier in Cambridge. A subsequent confrontation with police in Watertown resulted in a violent firefight; Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot by officers and run over by Dzhokhar as he fled the scene. A massive shelter-in-place order was issued for the Boston area as thousands of officers from the Boston Police Department, Massachusetts State Police, and Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a door-to-door search. Dzhokhar was found hiding in a dry-docked boat in a Watertown backyard on the evening of April 19 and was taken into custody after being wounded in another exchange of gunfire.

Trial and conviction

Tsarnaev was charged in a 30-count federal indictment, including use of a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. His trial began in March 2015 in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts under Judge George A. O'Toole Jr.. The prosecution, led by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, presented extensive evidence, including forensic materials, video footage, and a confession written inside the boat where he was captured. His defense team, led by attorney Judy Clarke, did not contest his involvement but argued he was dominated and radicalized by his older brother. In April 2015, the jury found him guilty on all counts. In May 2015, after the penalty phase of the trial, the same jury sentenced him to death.

Imprisonment and appeals

Tsarnaev is currently incarcerated at the ADX Florence supermax prison in Colorado. His legal team immediately began the appeals process, arguing that the trial should have been moved out of Boston due to pervasive pretrial publicity and that the judge improperly excluded evidence. In July 2020, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit overturned his death sentence, citing procedural errors in the jury selection process. However, in March 2022, the Supreme Court of the United States, in a 6–3 decision in the case United States v. Tsarnaev, reinstated the death penalty. As of 2023, further appeals are ongoing in lower federal courts, focusing on claims of prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective assistance of counsel, which continue to stay his execution.

Category:American terrorists Category:American people convicted of murder Category:1993 births Category:People convicted by the United States federal government Category:People from Cambridge, Massachusetts