Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Apologizes For Boston Marathon Bombings
BOSTON (CBS/AP) — Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev apologized Wednesday in his first public statement since the attacks in April 2013.
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"I would like to now apologize to the victims and to the survivors," he said in U.S. District Court, shortly before he was formally sentenced to death.
Related: Survivors React To Apology
"I am guilty of the bombing, let there be no lingering question about that," he continued.
Tsarnaev said after the bombing, he "learned victims' names and saw their faces" and noted that he was listening as "all these people testified" during his trial earlier this year.
"I am sorry for the lives that I've taken, the sorrow I have caused," he told the court.
"I pray for Allah to bestow mercy upon those I killed and their families. I have done irreparable damage."
"I ask Allah to have mercy upon everyone here today, on me and my brother.... Thank you," he said before sitting down.
Moments later, U.S. District Judge George O'Toole Jr. formally sentenced him to death.
O'Toole quoted Shakespeare, saying "The evil that men do lives after them."
"Whenever your name is mentioned, what will be remembered is the evil you have done. No one will remember your teachers were fond of you," the judge said in a reference to Tsarnaev's defense during the penalty phase of the trial.
"It was a monstrous self-deception" that you attempted to defend your actions, "to forget your own humanity," O'Toole said.
24 VICTIM IMPACT STATEMENTS
Earlier in the day during the victim impact statements, Tsarnaev listened as a procession of victims and their loved ones lashed out at him for his "cowardly" and "disgusting" acts.
Read: Man With Meat Cleaver Detained At Court
"He can't possibly have had a soul to do such a horrible thing," said Karen Rand McWatters, who lost a leg in the attack and whose best friend, 29-year-old Krystle Campbell, was killed.
WBZ-TV's Christina Hager reports
Campbell's mother, Patricia Campbell, was the first person to address the court. She looked across the room at Tsarnaev, seated about 20 feet away, and spoke directly to him.
"What you did to my daughter is disgusting," she said. "I don't know what to say to you. I think the jury did the right thing."
Twenty-four people in all gave so-called victim impact statements at the sentencing in federal court.
The outcome was a foregone conclusion: O'Toole Jr. was required under law to impose the jury's death sentence for the April 15, 2013, attack that killed three people and wounded more than 260.
The only real suspense was whether Tsarnaev would say anything when given a chance to speak near the end of the proceedings.
Tsarnaev, 21, had said almost nothing publicly since his arrest more than two years ago, offering neither remorse nor explanation.
McWatters, Campbell's best friend, urged Tsarnaev to show remorse to discourage other jihadis from killing people in similar attacks.
"You can save them from these cowardly acts if you really have an ounce of regret or remorse," she said.
In May, the jury condemned the former college student to die for joining his older brother, Tamerlan, in setting off the two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line and in killing an MIT police officer as they fled. Tamerlan, 26, was killed during the getaway.
A somber-looking Tsarnaev, wearing a dark sport jacket with a collared shirt and no tie, sat between his lawyers, his chair turned toward the lectern from which the victims spoke. He picked at his beard and gazed downward most of the time, only occasionally looking at the victims.
'YOU'VE UNIFIED US'
Rebekah Gregory, a Texas woman who lost a leg in the bombing, defiantly told Tsarnaev she is not his victim.
"While your intention was to destroy America, what you have really accomplished is actually quite the opposite — you've unified us," she said, staring directly at Tsarnaev as he looked down.
"We are Boston strong, we are America strong, and choosing to mess with us was a terrible idea. So how's that for your VICTIM impact statement?"
Several victims condemned Tsarnaev for coming to the U.S. as an immigrant from Russia, enjoying the benefits of living here and then attacking American citizens.
"He is a leech abusing the privilege of American freedom, and he spit in the face of the American dream," said Jennifer Rogers, an older sister of slain MIT Officer Sean Collier.
'THIS IS ALL ON HIM'
Bill Richard, whose 8-year-old son Martin was the youngest person killed in the bombing, said Tsarnaev could have backed out of the plot and reported his brother to authorities.
Instead, Richard said, "He chose hate. He chose destruction. He chose death. This is all on him."
Richard noted that his family would have preferred that Tsarnaev receive a life sentence so that he could have had "a lifetime to reconcile with himself what he did that day."
Richard said his family has chosen love, kindness and peace, adding: "That is what makes us different than him."
Tsarnaev's lawyers admitted he participated in the bombings but argued that Tamerlan was the driving force in the plot.
In a message he scrawled in the boat he was found hiding in, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said the attack was retaliation against the U.S. for its wars in Muslim countries.
Some victims Wednesday described psychological injuries invisible to the world, but all too real and debilitating to them.
'He Didn't Renounce Terrorism'
U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz said in a press conference after the sentencing that she was "more struck by what [Tsarnaev] didn't say."
"He didn't renounce terrorism, he didn't renounce violent extremism and he couched his comments in line with Allah and Allah's views, which give it a religious tone," she said. "And there was nothing, as you heard Judge O'Toole say in the courtroom, there was nothing about this crime that was Islam associated."
Watch: WBZ-TV's David Wade and Ed Davis On Tsarnaev's Apology
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Carl Stevens reports:
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