Lawyers representing Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger and only survivor of two brothers accused of perpetrating the Boston Marathon bombing, rested their case on Tuesday afternoon.
Tsarnaev’s defence team called just three witnesses and re-called one government witness in just a day and a half of testimony. By contrast, the prosecution called 92 witnesses over a total of 15 days.
Closing arguments have been scheduled for Monday, 6 April.
With their eye on the “sentencing” phase, Tsarnaevs defence team strove to prime the jury with the idea that Tsarnaev’s older brother Tamerlan was the driving force behind the 2013 attack.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police several days after the bombing, and his younger brother was discovered hiding in a dry-docked boat several days later.
Tsarnaev has entered a plea of not guilty, though during her opening statement defence attorney Judy Clarke stated that the defence would not contend the fact that Tsarnaev participated in the attack – but said he had fallen under the influence of the radicalized Tamerlan.
The defense called one of its first witnesses on Monday. A cell site analyst testified that Tsarnaev’s cellphone was being used in south-eastern Massachusetts, where he was attending the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, while pressure cookers were being purchased north of Boston two and a half months before the bombing.
The analyst also said large quantities of BBs were purchased a little over a month before the attack in two Walmart stores in New Hampshire, at a time when Tsarnaev’s cellphone was again being used near the university.
Twin pressure cooker bombs filled with BBs and shrapnel exploded near the marathon’s finish line on 15 April 2013. Three people were killed and more than 260 injured.
A computer expert testified on Tuesday that Tsarnaev’s older brother conducted internet searches on bombing components in the weeks before the 2013 terror attack. Search terms on Tamerlan’s laptop included “detonator”, “transmitter and receiver” and “fireworks firing system”.
In contrast, he testified that Tsarnaev’s laptop showed his computer activity focused heavily on social networking sites, including Facebook and a Russian version of Facebook. The court also heard that the Quentin Tarantino movie Django Unchained was viewed on Tsarnaev’s laptop in the month before the bombing.
Prosecutors rested their case Monday after jurors saw gruesome autopsy photos and heard testimony from a medical examiner about the blast injuries that killed 8-year-old Martin Richard.
At least three jurors cried and wiped their eyes with tissues as they looked at photos of the boy. His parents watched somberly from the second row of the courtroom.
Dr Henry Nields, chief medical examiner for Massachusetts, said Martin suffered injuries to virtually every part of his body, including lacerations of his liver, left kidney and spleen, broken bones and third-degree burns. His stomach also was ruptured.
Tsarnaev’s lawyer told the jury during opening statements that he participated in the bombings but that his older brother, Tamerlan, was the mastermind behind the attack.
Prosecutors believe the brothers – ethnic Chechens who lived in the Dagestan region of Russia – were seeking retaliation against the US for wars in Muslim countries.
Closing statements in the trial have been set for Monday April 6.
