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In Sentencing Phase, Prosecutors Say Tsarnaev Is 'Unrepentant And Unchanged'

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
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Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is "unrepentant and unchanged."

That's what a prosecutor told jurors on Tuesday as they weighed whether the 21-year-old convicted in the bombings that killed three people and left 264 others wounded should get the death penalty.

NPR's Tovia Smith reports that the prosecution presented jurors with four large portraits of the victims and one photo of Tsarnaev giving the middle finger to a security camera in his jail cell.

"This is the unrepentant killer he is," federal prosecutor Nadine Pellegrini said.

As we've reported, earlier this month, the jury found Tsarnaev guilty of all 30 counts. Seventeen of them carry the death penalty.

CBS News reports that after opening arguments, the prosecution began calling witnesses and victims of the bombing. The network adds:

"'I remember hearing just bloodcurdling screams. I just remember looking around, just seeing blood everywhere, sort of like debris falling from the sky,' said Celeste Corcoran, who made her way to the witness stand on two artificial limbs.

"She told the jury that the blast hurled her into the air and left her in such excruciating pain that she wanted to die.

"'I just remember thinking how awful this was and how this had to stop. This couldn't be real, couldn't be real,' she said."

Tsarnaev, according to CBS, was expression-less and did not appear to ever look at the victims.

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

Eyder Peralta is NPR's East Africa correspondent based in Nairobi, Kenya.