Tsarnaev’s father reacts to sentence: ‘We will fight until the end’
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s father spoke to ABC News on Friday after jurors sentenced his son to death for the Boston Marathon bombings.
“We will fight until the end,’’ Anzor Tsarnaev said by phone from Dagestan, Russia.
“What a parent can feel at such moment?’’ he said. “It is hard. Hope exists always. We had hope and still do.’’
Tsarnaev’s case will be automatically appealed to a higher federal court, and the federal government currently has a moratorium on all executions.
During the sentencing phase of the trial, in an attempt to show Tsarnaev’s troubled family dynamic, defense attorneys called a doctor who said Anzor Tsarnaev had PTSD and the anxiety disorder agoraphobia, as well as brain disease, most likely from a childhood head injury and boxing. Anzor Tsarnaev was tortured in a camp during the Russian-Chechen war and thought the former KGB was following him, the doctor testified.
On the sentence verdict form, under mitigating factors, all 12 jurors agreed “mental illness and brain damage disabled Tsarnaev’s father.’’
However, only two jurors agreed that “[Tsarnaev] was deprived of needed stability and guidance during his adolescence by his father’s mental illness and brain damage,’’ and only two agreed that “[Tsarnaev’s] father’s illness and disability made (older brother and co-conspirator) Tamerlan the dominant male figure in [Tsarnaev’s] life.’’
Read the full ABC News report.
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