Tsarnaev to Face Execution in Terre Haute, Indiana

Convicted Boston Marathon bomber apologized to victims during formal sentencing

Convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, sentenced to death Wednesday for the 2013 attack, will spend at least a portion of his remaining days at a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

The medium security federal correctional institution currently holds more than 1,300 inmates, according to its Federal Bureau of Prisons website. Executions there are conducted by lethal injection.

Judy Clarke, Tsarnaev's lead defense requested on Wednesday that the execution be carried out in New Hampshire, but U.S. District Court Judge George O'Toole Jr. ruled that out and ordered Tsarnaev to be put to death in Terre Haute.

It wasn't immediately known Wednesday when Tsarnaev would be transferred to the facility, and his execution will no doubt be delayed several years by appeals. 

"I would like to now apologize to the victims, to the survivors," Tsarnaev said shortly before the judge formally sentenced him. "I am sorry for the lives that I've taken, the suffering that I've caused and the damage that I've done, irreparable damage."

He asked for Allah's mercy for those who died and those he injured and for him and his brother.

A federal jury in May condemned Tsarnaev to die for bombing the 2013 marathon with his brother, Tamerlan. Three people were killed and more than 260 were injured when the brothers detonated two pressure-cooker bombs near the finish line.

The Advocate of Stamford reports that Ray Leavitt said his company, EvoLux Transportation, wants to persuade Stamford officials to revise ordinances and lift a ban on helicopter landings in the city. There are exceptions for emergency medical trips and VIP visits.

There have been only three federal executions since 1988, when a moratorium was lifted. The last execution at FCI Terre Haute was of Gulf War veteran Louis Jones Jr. who was convicted in the 1995 kidnapping, murder and rape of 19-year-old Army recruit Pvt. Tracie Joy McBride.

Timothy McVeigh, convicted in the 1995 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, was put to death  at the Terre Haute penitentiary in 2001.

Former Illinois Gov. George Ryan spent nearly six years at the Terre Haute facility on a corruption conviction. 

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