BOSTON (AP) — Federal prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv) in the Boston Marathon bombing.
The final decision was made by Attorney General Eric Holder and was announced Thursday. The twin blasts in April killed three people and wounded more than 260 in one of the most prominent terrorist attacks in the U.S since 9/11.
This file photo by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings who is accused in two bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260 others near the finish line of the April 15 marathon. Lawyers for Tsarnaev are headed to court Tuesday, Nov. 12, 2013 to ask a judge to ease restrictions placed on him in prison as he awaits trial. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation, File)
Prosecutors allege that Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, ethnic Chechens from Russia who had lived in the Boston area for about a decade, planted two pressure cooker bombs near the finish line. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police.
Seventeen of 30 charges against Tsarnaev carry the possibility of the death penalty, including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.
The 20-year-old Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty. No trial date has been set.
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