BOSTON — Testimony in the trial of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev zeroed in Tuesday on his late brother’s wife, revealing searches done on her computer on the rewards of dying as a martyr’s spouse and raising questions about what she knew before the 2013 attacks.
Mark Spencer, a computer expert testifying for the defense, said a computer belonging to Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, Katherine Russell, contained searches done more than a year before the bombings for terms that included “rewards for wife of mujahedeen” and “If your husband becomes a shahid, what are the rewards for you?”
Mujahedeen is the Arabic word for holy warrior; a shahid is a term for a martyr, specifically one who dies during a holy war.
Three people were killed and more than 260 were wounded when the Tsarnaev brothers set off two pressure-cooker bombs packed with shrapnel near the marathon’s finish line on April 15, 2013. Prosecutors have said the attack was designed to retaliate against the U.S. for wars in Muslim countries.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 21, who was born in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan, was convicted this month of all 30 charges against him. A jury must now decide whether he should spend the rest of his life in prison or should be executed.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a shootout with police hours after he and his brother killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer during a getaway attempt three days after the bombing.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers have argued that Tamerlan was the mastermind of the bombings and led Dzhokhar, then 19, down the path to terrorism. They say Tamerlan became radicalized, and his wife, an American from Rhode Island, showed signs of becoming a religious fanatic.
Russell’s name came up Monday, the first day for the defense to present its case in the penalty phase of Dzhokhar’s trial. Her best friend, Gina Crawford, testified that she texted Russell the day of the bombings to ask if she was OK. Crawford said Russell texted her back, saying she was fine and as far as she knew, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was at home at the time of the attacks.
Crawford said Russell then added a curious statement, texting, “a lot more people are killed every day in Syria and in other places.” She wrote in another text: “Innocent people.”
Amato DeLuca, an attorney for Russell and her family, has said repeatedly that Russell didn’t suspect her husband of anything before the bombings and nothing seemed amiss in the first few days afterward.
DeLuca told The Associated Press last month that he and Russell have not heard from federal officials in a year. Amato said Russell wasn’t identified as a witness in Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial.
Russell’s lawyer didn’t immediately return messages Tuesday. Russell now lives in New Jersey with the 4-year-old daughter she had with Tamerlan. She moved there to be closer to the Tsarnaevs’ two sisters.
Russell’s mother, Judith Russell, testified Monday that she and her husband weren’t happy when Katherine began dating Tamerlan Tsarnaev and that they tried to encourage her to break off the relationship. She said Tamerlan became increasingly strident about religion and the U.S. He talked about “this country’s influence and harm to Islamic countries,” she said.
On Tuesday, Tsarnaev’s lawyers also focused on Tamerlan’s skills as a boxer and his anger when he was told he couldn’t advance beyond regional tournaments because he was not a U.S. citizen.
Brandon Douglas, a mixed martial arts fighter who worked out with Tamerlan at a Boston gym, said Tamerlan took the exclusion personally.
“He expressed frustration that they wouldn’t allow him entry and that he felt that it was an intentional slight directed solely at him,” Douglas said.
Douglas said that over time, friction developed between Tamerlan and the gym’s staff because Tamerlan would wear street shoes on the mats, take other fighters’ equipment without permission and disrupt class by being loud.
Three days before the bombings, the gym’s general manager emailed the owner to complain about Tamerlan’s behavior, Douglas said.
The jury was shown a short video from that day, showing Tamerlan in the gym’s boxing ring with Dzhokhar and a third man. Tamerlan and the other man are warming up, but Dzhokhar mainly just rests against the ring’s ropes. At one point, Tamerlan throws a pair of boxer’s hand wraps at Dzhokhar.
Dzhokhar’s attorney David Bruck said in opening statements that Dzhokhar was “a good kid” who was led astray by his increasingly fanatical brother. Prosecutors have painted Tsarnaev as an unrepentant killer who deserves to be executed for his crimes.
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