Jurors See Tsarnaev's Bloodstained Boat Message

Killing civilians is allowed, he wrote
By Rob Quinn,  Newser Staff
Posted Mar 11, 2015 3:15 AM CDT
Jurors See Tsarnaev's Blood-Stained Boat Message
This undated forensics photograph made by the FBI shows handwriting on the bullet-riddled, bloodstained wall of a boat.   (AP Photo/US Attorney's Office)

The message that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scrawled inside a boat as he hid from police was presented to jurors yesterday—complete with bloodstains and bullet holes. A Boston police officer testified that he saw the message as he searched the boat in a backyard in the suburb of Watertown for bombs, the Boston Globe reports. Jurors were shown photos of the note, which prosecutors describe as both a confession and a manifesto. "God has a plan for each person. Mine was to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions," wrote Tsarnaev, whose defense team has admitted his involvement in the Boston Marathon bombings.

Tsarnaev's defense team is trying to save him from the death penalty by arguing that he was under the sway of brother Tamerlan, but the boat message, written after he was wounded in a shootout, could help seal his fate, CNN reports. He praises martyrdom, accuses the US government of killing innocents, and says that he doesn't like to kill civilians—but he is a "holy warrior" and it is allowed under the circumstances. "I don't like killing innocent people it is forbidden in Islam but due to said"—word lost to bullet hole—"it is allowed." "All credit goes," he concludes, with the final word or words lost to a bullet hole. (More Dzhokhar Tsarnaev stories.)

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