Death penalty sought for Boston bomber

Photo: The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

FILE - In this Friday, April 19, 2013 Massachusetts State Police file photo, 19-year-old Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, bloody and disheveled with the red dot of a sniper's rifle laser sight on his head, emerges from a boat at the time of his capture by law enforcement authorities in Watertown, Mass. (AP Photo/Massachusetts State Police, Sean Murphy, File)

Federal prosecutors Thursday announced they will seek the death penalty against 20-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the Boston Marathon bombing, accusing him of betraying his adopted country by ruthlessly carrying out a terrorist attack calculated to cause maximum carnage.

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder's decision to press for Tsarnaev's execution was widely expected. The twin blasts last April killed three people and wounded more than 260, and over half the 30 federal charges against Tsarnaev — including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill — carry a possible death sentence.

"The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," Holder said in a statement of just two terse and dispassionate sentences that instantly raised the stakes in one of the most wrenching criminal cases Boston has ever seen.

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set.

In a notice of intent filed in court, federal prosecutors in Boston listed factors they contend justify a sentence of death against Tsarnaev, who moved to the U.S. from Russia about a decade ago.

"Dzhokhar Tsarnaev received asylum from the United States; obtained citizenship and enjoyed the freedoms of a United States citizen; and then betrayed his allegiance to the United States by killing and maiming people in the United States," read the notice filed by U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz.

Prosecutors also cited Tsarnaev's "lack of remorse" and allegations that he killed an MIT police officer as well as an 8-year-old boy, a "particularly vulnerable" victim because of his age. They also said Tsarnaev committed the killings after "substantial planning and premeditation."

In addition, they cited his alleged decision to target the Boston Marathon, "an iconic event that draws large crowds of men, women and children to its final stretch, making it especially susceptible to the act and effects of terrorism."

Tsarnaev's lawyers had no immediate comment.

In an interview with ABC, Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat, who lives in Russia, said: "How can I feel about this? I feel nothing. I can tell you one thing, that I love my son. I will always feel proud of him. And I keep loving him."

Prosecutors allege Tsarnaev, then 19, and his 26-year-old brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia, built and planted two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line of the race to retaliate against the U.S. for its military actions in Muslim countries.

The older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a shootout with police during a getaway attempt days after the bombing. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was wounded but escaped and was later captured hiding in a boat parked in a yard in a Boston suburb.

Authorities said he scrawled inside the boat such things as "The US Government is killing our innocent civilians" and "We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all."

Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, 70 death sentences have been imposed, but only three people have been executed, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh in 2001.

The last federal execution was in 2003, when Gulf War veteran Louis Jones Jr. was put to death for kidnapping 19-year-old Army Pvt. Tracie McBride from a Texas military base, raping her and beating her to death with a tire iron.