MOSCOW, May 16 (RIA Novosti) – Terror suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev wrote a message on the wall of the boat in which he was captured, claiming responsibility for the April 15 bomb attack on the Boston Marathon, CBS News reported on Thursday.
CBS News senior correspondent John Miller, a former assistant FBI director, cited unnamed sources as saying that Tsarnaev, 19, had written the message with a pen on the inside wall of the boat cabin as he hid from police, bleeding from gunshot wounds sustained in an earlier shootout with police that killed his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan.
According to Miller, the text says that the bombings were “in retribution for the US crimes against Muslims in places like Iraq and Afghanistan, that the victims of the Boston bombing were collateral damage, the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in US wars around the world, summing up that when you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims.”
Miller described the message as a “claim of responsibility” and said that the writings are “certainly statements that are admissible” in court.
He added that the statements presented prosecutors with a clear picture of the Tsarnaev brothers’ motive, and that the note was consistent with what Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had told investigators while in custody.
The Tsarnaev brothers, Russians with Chechen roots who were living in Massachusetts, allegedly planted two pressure-cooker bombs laden with shrapnel and explosives near the finish line of the April 15 Boston Marathon, killing three people and wounding more than 260 others.
US authorities have charged Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with using a weapon of mass destruction against people and property, but the White House rejected demands by some Republican lawmakers that he be tried before a military tribunal as an “enemy combatant.”
If convicted, Tsarnaev could face the death penalty, according to a statement by the US Justice Department.
Updated to clarify that John Miller was citing his unnamed sources
