MOSCOW, July 17 (RIA Novosti) – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect, will not appear on the cover of the Russian version of Rolling Stone magazine, its editor-in-chief said Wednesday.
The magazine’s US version used a photograph of Tsarnaev for the cover of its latest issue – followed inside by a lengthy story about the life of the 19-year-old, who has roots in Russia’s Caucasus region – prompting a squall of angry comments from readers and bloggers.
The Russian cover will feature US actor Matt Damon instead, although a translated – and truncated – version of the Tsarnaev story will come out on August 1, editor-in-chief Alexander Kondukov said.
“The decision [not to run the story on the Russian cover] was purely a marketing move,” Kondukov told RIA Novosti.
The story covers Tsarnaev’s transformation from a “promising student” into a “monster” and features interviews with his friends, teachers and law enforcement officers, according to an overview on the US magazine’s website.
Earlier this month, Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty to all charges against him – including murder and using a weapon of mass destruction – in connection with the deadly April 15 bomb attack that left three people dead and more than 260 injured.
Tsarnaev faces a 30-count indictment, including charges of killing a police officer at the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) as police chased the teenager and his brother, fellow suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, in a frantic manhunt three days after the bombing.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a shootout with police in the Boston suburb of Watertown, while his brother was injured and apprehended four days after the attack. If found guilty of the charges he is facing, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces the death penalty or life imprisonment.
