Boston Bombing Suspect’s Family Still Struggling To Find Burial Site

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tamerlan-tsarnaevThe body of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev remained in limbo today as his family searched for a cemetery that would accept him.

Several Massachusetts cemeteries have refused to bury Tsarnaev and protesters have staked out the Worcester funeral home holding the body. Despite a plea from the funeral home director, Governor Deval Patrick said on Monday he would not get involved.

Tsarnaev, 26, died in a gun battle with police on April 19, four days after bombs he is believed to have set with his younger brother killed three people and injured another 264 near the finish line of the world-famous marathon.

Relatives have said they want him buried nearby. Under Islamic law, the body cannot be cremated, a procedure used for criminals including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.

“The whole situation is unprecedented,” said David Walkinshaw, a spokesman for the Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association. The state of Massachusetts does not own its own cemeteries, he said, and the federal government has only cemeteries for war veterans.

“The challenge here is that there’s no way to demand a cemetery allow for a burial to take place,” Walkinshaw said.

Some Massachusetts residents want the body sent back to Tsarnaev’s native Russia. William Breault of Worcester told reporters on Monday he had set up a bank account to raise funds to ship the remains.

“I not only don’t want to see him buried in Worcester, Massachusetts. … I don’t think he should be buried in the state,” Breault told CNN on Monday.

Gabriel Gomez, a Massachusetts Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, suggested disposing of Tsarnaev’s body in the ocean as was done after U.S. forces killed Osama bin Laden in 2011.

“Bureaucrats worried about where to bury Boston Marathon terrorist #1. To me, it’s simple: he should be buried at sea with Bin Laden,” he wrote on his official Twitter account.

Tsarnaev’s body was taken to Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester last week after spending more than a week at a medical examiner’s office in Boston. Several cemeteries including the Gardens at Gethsemane in West Roxbury have said they would not accept Tsarnaev’s body for burial.

Graham Putnam funeral home owner Peter Stefan, chairman of a board that oversees funeral services and embalming in Massachusetts, said he has an obligation to accept the remains.

Stefan has said he would seek help from state officials if he could not find a resting place soon.

Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, said on Sunday that his nephew should be buried in Massachusetts, his home. Tsarnaev’s parents, ethnic Chechens who returned to southern Russia several years ago, have suggested in various interviews and reports that their son should be buried in Cambridge, or returned to Russia.

The Massachusetts governor declined to get involved Monday.

Read more at REUTERS.

{Matzav.com Newscenter}


11 COMMENTS

  1. The terrorists responsible for the Mumbai attacks were denied Muslim funerals — by the Muslims in India.

  2. Despite the freebies the family got from the US gov’t, called welfare, the family shouuld have to pay for this burial. No freebie burial for a terrorist. Let their parents pay for their sons body if they want it returned to Russia. This country needs to stop giving freebies to criminals.

  3. Hang him wrapped in pigskin in the center of the city. And that’s how it should be done for all terrorists in Israel too.

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