WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Dozens of anti-death penalty advocates stood before a federal court in Boston, Massachusetts on Wednesday to protest against convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s formal death sentence later in the day.
“Why do we kill people who kill people to show that killing people is wrong?” a sign held by one of the protesters outside of the Boston federal court read on Wednesday.
Another sign read, “We gather to mourn the executed, their victims, and the executioners.”
Although the US state of Massachusetts does not have the death penalty, the charges against Tsarnaev were federal, which allows for execution by lethal injection at an undetermined time in the future.
On May 15, a jury found Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 charges against him for his role in the April 2013 Boston Marathon bombing that left three people dead and injured more than 260. They deemed death an appropriate punishment for six of the capital counts against him, including for the use of a weapon of mass destruction and bombing in a public place.
Anti death penalty advocates outside Tsarnaev sentencing. https://t.co/sifQZqbTn5
— Jim Armstrong (@JimArmstrongWBZ) June 24, 2015
Some of the more than 20 of Tsarnaev’s victims and their family members read tearful statements to the convicted Boston Marathon bomber on Wednesday ahead of the courts formal announcement.
Tsarnaev has admitted that he and his brother Tamerlan, who was killed in a shootout with police four days after the attack, were responsible for the bombings at the marathon finish line.
