BOSTON: Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s convictions or death sentence should be tossed because it was impossible for him to get a fair trial in the same city where the shrapnel-packed, pressure cooker bombs exploded, his lawyers told a federal appeals court on Thursday.
In a 500-page brief filed in the 1st US District Court of Appeals, Tsarnaev’s legal team outlined a host of other problems with his 2015 trial, during which the defense admitted from the outset that he and his older brother carried out the attack. His appellate lawyers are also pointing to issues with jurors, certain testimony from surviving victims and the defense’s inability to tell jurors about links between Tsarnaev’s brother and an unsolved triple killing in 2011.
His lawyers argue the trial court judge’s “first fundamental error” was denying the defense’s repeated requests to move the case out of a city that was “traumatized by the bombings, ordered to shelter in place during the manhunt, saturated by prejudicial publicity and united in the Boston Strong movement.”
“This case should not have been tried in Boston,” the attorneys wrote.
Tsarnaev was sentenced to death just over two years after he and his brother set off bombs near the Boston Marathon’s finish line on April 15, 2013, killing three people and wounding more than 260. He was convicted of all 30 charges against him, including conspiracy and use of weapon of mass destruction.
Tsarnaev admitted at his sentencing that he committed the attack— saying “If there’s any lingering doubt about that, let there be no more” — and apologized to victims and their loved ones. The defense had sought to portray Tsarnaev as an impressionable teenager who was lured by his brother into participating in the deadly plot.
Tsarnaev, now 25, is behind bars at the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. His 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a gunbattle with police a few days after the bombing.
His lawyers pushed several times to move the trial, arguing the intense media scrutiny and number of people touched by the bombings in Boston would taint the jury pool. But US District Judge George O’Toole refused, saying he believed a fair and impartial jury in the city could be found.
A three judge panel of the 1st Circuit agreed, noting that other high-profile terrorism cases such as the 1993 World Trade Center bombing took place in the cities where the attacks occurred.
Among the dozens of other issues Tsarnaev’s lawyers are raising on appeal are two jurors they say should have been dismissed for lying to the court about their online comments and discussions about the case before the trial.
One juror said in Twitter posts that that she was “locked down” with her family and retweeted another post calling Tsarnaev a “piece of garbage,” but told the court she had not commented on the case or been asked to shelter in place, the attorneys say. On the day of Tsarnaev’s sentencing, the juror changed her Facebook profile picture to an image that said “BOSTON STRONG,” the attorneys say.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers are also challenging the judge’s refusal to allow the defense to tell the jury about evidence tying Tamerlan to the killings of three people in the Boston suburb of Waltham in 2011. The defense sought to use the killings to underscore their argument that Tamerlan was the mastermind and coerced his brother into participating in the attacks.
Prosecutors have said Tamerlan’s friend, Ibragim Todashev, implicated him in the killings of three men whose bodies were found sprinkled with marijuana, their throats cut. Todashev was shot to death by an FBI agent after authorities said he charged another investigator with a pole while being questioned about the Tsarnaevs.
“This evidence that Tamerlan was a cold-blooded killer who convinced a friend to join him in his crimes strongly supported the defense’s central argument in mitigation: 26-year-old Tamerlan, a former New England Golden Gloves heavyweight boxing champion, was a violent man who planned and led the bombings, and Jahar, his 19-year-old younger brother, who had no history of violence, participated in it only under Tamerlan’s influence,” his lawyers wrote.
Tamerlan was never charged in the killings, which prosecutors have said remain under investigation.
Boston Marathon bomber’s lawyers want death sentence tossed
Boston Marathon bomber’s lawyers want death sentence tossed
- Tsarnaev, now 25, is behind bars at the supermax prison in Florence, Colorado. His 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a gunbattle with police a few days after the bombing
Fire rips through slum area in Philippine capital
- Manila Fire District said around 1,000 houses were destroyed in the blaze
- The structures housed around 2,000 families, according to the fire department
Manila Fire District said around 1,000 houses were burned in the blaze that is thought to have started on the second floor of one of the homes.
There were no immediate reports of casualties.
Drone footage shared online by the city’s disaster agency showed houses in Isla Puting Bato village of Manila razed to the ground.
The structures housed around 2,000 families, according to the fire department.
Village resident Leonila Abiertas, 65, lost almost all her possessions, but managed to save her late husband’s ashes.
“I only got the urn with the ashes of my husband,” a crying Abiertas said.
“I really don’t know how I can start my life again after this fire.”
Fire and disaster services deployed 36 trucks and four fire boats while the country’s airforce sent in two helicopters to help extinguish the fire.
“That area is fire-prone since most of the houses there are made of light materials,” firefighter Geanelli Nunez said.
Turkiye’s Erdogan to discuss Ukraine war with NATO chief
ANKARA: Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan will discuss the latest developments in the Russia-Ukraine war with NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte on Monday during his visit to Ankara, a Turkish official said on Sunday.
Russia struck Ukraine with a new hypersonic medium-range ballistic missile on Thursday in response to Kyiv’s use of US and British missiles against Russia, marking an escalation in the war that began when Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbor in February 2022.
NATO member Turkiye, which has condemned the Russian invasion, says it supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity and it has provided Kyiv with military support.
But Turkiye, a Black Sea neighbor of both Russia and Ukraine, also opposes Western sanctions against Moscow, with which it shares important defense, energy and tourism ties.
On Wednesday, Erdogan opposed a US decision to allow Ukraine to use long-range missiles to attack inside Russia, saying it would further inflame the conflict, according to a readout shared by his office.
Moscow says that by giving the green light for Ukraine to fire Western missiles deep inside Russia, the US and its allies are entering into direct conflict with Russia. On Tuesday, Putin approved policy changes that lowered the threshold for Russia to use nuclear weapons in response to an attack with conventional weapons.
During their talks on Monday, Erdogan and Rutte will also discuss the removal of defense procurement obstacles between NATO allies and the military alliance’s joint fight against terrorism, the Turkish official said.
Blasts heard in Ukraine’s Kyiv, witnesses report
KYIV: Explosions were heard early on Sunday in Kyiv, Reuters’ witnesses and local media in the Ukrainian capital reported.
The blasts sounded like air defense units in operation, Reuters’ witnesses reported. There was no immediate official comment from Ukraine’s military. Kyiv and its surrounding region and most of northeast Ukraine were under air raid alerts, starting at around 0100 GMT.
Meanwhile, Russia’s air defense systems destroyed 34 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 27 over the Kursk region bordering Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry said in a post on its Telegram messaging app on Sunday.
The ministry, in its post, did not mention an earlier statement by the Kursk governor that air defense units had destroyed two “Ukrainian missiles” overnight over the region.
Developing nations slam ‘paltry’ $300 billion climate deal
- Developing countries say finance pact “optical illusion” and “lack of goodwill” from rich countries amid heated negotiations
- Agreement commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies
BAKU: The world approved a bitterly negotiated climate deal Sunday but poorer nations most at the mercy of worsening disasters dismissed a $300 billion a year pledge from wealthy historic polluters as insultingly low.
After two exhausting weeks of chaotic bargaining and sleepless nights, nearly 200 nations banged through the contentious finance pact in the early hours in a sports stadium in Azerbaijan.
But the applause had barely subsided when India delivered a full-throated rejection of the “abysmally poor” deal, kicking off a firestorm of criticism from across the developing world.
“It’s a paltry sum,” thundered India’s delegate Chandni Raina.
“This document is little more than an optical illusion. This, in our opinion, will not address the enormity of the challenge we all face.”
Sierra Leone’s climate minister Jiwoh Abdulai said it showed a “lack of goodwill” from rich countries to stand by the world’s poorest as they confront rising seas and harsher droughts.
Nigeria’s envoy Nkiruka Maduekwe put it more bluntly: “This is an insult.”
Some countries had accused Azerbaijan, an oil and gas exporter, of lacking the will to meet the moment in a year defined by costly disasters and on track to become the hottest on record.
But at protests throughout COP29, developed nations — major economies like the European Union, United States and Japan — were accused of negotiating in bad faith, making a fair deal impossible.
Developing nations arrived in the Caspian Sea city of Baku hoping to secure a massive financial boost from rich countries many times above their existing pledge of $100 billion a year.
Tina Stege, climate envoy for the Marshall Islands, said she would return home with only “small portion” of what she fought for, but not empty-handed.
“It isn’t nearly enough, but it’s a start,” said Stege, whose atoll nation homeland faces an existential threat from creeping sea levels.
Nations had struggled at COP29 to reconcile long-standing divisions over how much developed nations most accountable for historic climate change should provide to poorer countries least responsible but most impacted by Earth’s rapid warming.
UN climate chief Simon Stiell acknowledged the final deal was imperfect and said “no country got everything they wanted.”
“This is no time for victory laps,” he said.
UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said he had “hoped for a more ambitious outcome” and appealed to governments to see it as a starting point.
Developed countries only put the $300 billion figure on the table on Saturday after COP29 went into extra time and diplomats worked through the night to improve an earlier spurned offer.
Bleary-eyed diplomats, huddled anxiously in groups, were still polishing the final phrasing on the plenary floor in the dying hours before the deal passed.
UK Energy Secretary Ed Miliband hailed “a critical eleventh hour deal at the eleventh hour for the climate.”
At points, the talks appeared on the brink of collapse.
Delegates stormed out of meetings, fired shots across the bow, and threatened to walk away from the negotiating table should rich nations not cough up more cash.
In the end — despite repeating that “no deal is better than a bad deal” — developing nations did not stand in the way of an agreement.
US President Joe Biden cast the agreement reached in Baku as a “historic outcome.”
EU climate envoy Wopke Hoekstra said it would be remembered as “the start of a new era for climate finance.”
The agreement commits developed nations to pay at least $300 billion a year by 2035 to help developing countries green their economies, cut emissions and prepare for worse disasters.
It falls short of the $390 billion that economists commissioned by the United Nations had deemed a fair share contribution by developed nations.
“This COP has been a disaster for the developing world,” said Mohamed Adow, the Kenyan director of Power Shift Africa, a think tank.
“It’s a betrayal of both people and planet, by wealthy countries who claim to take climate change seriously.”
The United States and EU pushed to have newly wealthy emerging economies like China — the world’s largest emitter — chip in.
Wealthy nations said it was politically unrealistic to expect more in direct government funding at a time of geopolitical uncertainty and economic belt-tightening.
Donald Trump, a skeptic of both climate change and foreign assistance, was elected just days before COP29 began and his victory cast a pall over the UN talks.
Other countries, particularly in the EU — the largest contributor of climate finance — saw right-wing backlashes against the green agenda, not fertile conditions for raising big sums of public money.
The final deal “encourages” developing countries to make contributions on a voluntary basis, reflecting no change for China, which already provides climate finance on its own terms.
The deal also posits a larger overall target of $1.3 trillion per year to cope with rising temperatures and disasters, but most would come from private sources.
Mounting economic costs of India’s killer smog
- India’s capital New Delhi frequently ranks among the world’s most polluted cities
- One study estimate India’s economic losses due to worsening air pollution at $95 billion yearly
NEW DELHI: Noxious smog smothering the plains of north India is not only choking the lungs of residents and killing millions, but also slowing the country’s economic growth.
India’s capital New Delhi frequently ranks among the world’s most polluted cities. Each winter, vehicle and factory emissions couple with farm fires from surrounding states to blanket the city in a dystopian haze.
Acrid smog this month contains more than 50 times the World Health Organization recommended limit of fine particulate matter — dangerous cancer-causing microparticles known as PM2.5 pollutants, that enter the bloodstream through the lungs.
Experts say India’s worsening air pollution is having a ruinous impact on its economy — with one study estimating losses to the tune of $95 billion annually, or roughly three percent of the country’s GDP.
The true extent of the economic price India is paying could be even greater.
“The externality costs are huge and you can’t assign a value to it,” said Vibhuti Garg, of the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis.
Bhargav Krishna of the Delhi-based research collective Sustainable Futures Collaborative said “costs add up in every phase.”
“From missing a day at work to developing chronic illness, the health costs associated with that, to premature death and the impact that has on the family of the person,” Krishna told AFP.
Still, several studies have tried to quantify the damage.
One by the global consultancy firm Dalberg concluded that in 2019, air pollution cost Indian businesses $95 billion due to “reduced productivity, work absences and premature death.”
The amount is nearly three percent of India’s budget, and roughly twice its annual public health expenditure.
“India lost 3.8 billion working days in 2019, costing $44 billion to air pollution caused by deaths,” according to the study which calculated that toxic air “contributes to 18 percent of all deaths in India.”
Pollution has also had a debilitating impact on the consumer economy because of direct health-related eventualities, the study said, reducing footfall and causing annual losses of $22 billion.
The numbers are even more staggering for Delhi, the epicenter of the crisis, with the capital province losing as much as six percent of its GDP annually to air pollution.
Restaurateur Sandeep Anand Goyle called the smog a “health and wealth hazard.”
“People who are health conscious avoid stepping out so we suffer,” said Goyle, who heads the Delhi chapter of the National Restaurant Association of India.
Tourism has also been impacted, as the smog season coincides with the period when foreigners traditionally visit northern India — too hot for many during the blisteringly hot summers.
“The smog is giving a bad name to India’s image,” said Rajiv Mehra of the Indian Association of Tour Operators.
Delhi faces an average 275 days of unhealthy air a year, according to monitors.
Piecemeal initiatives by the government — that critics call half-hearted — have failed to adequately address the problem.
Academic research indicates that its detrimental impact on the Indian economy is adding up.
A 2023 World Bank paper said that air pollution’s “micro-level” impacts on the economy translate to “macro-level effects that can be observed in year-to-year changes in GDP.”
The paper estimates that India’s GDP would have been 4.5 percent higher at the end of 2023, had the country managed to curb pollution by half in the previous 25 years.
Another study published in the Lancet health journal on the direct health impacts of air pollution in 2019 estimated an annual GDP deceleration of 1.36 percent due to “lost output from premature deaths and morbidity.”
Desperate emergency curbs — such as shuttering schools to reduce traffic emissions as well as banning construction — come with their own economic costs.
“Stopping work for weeks on end every winter makes our schedules go awry, and we end up overshooting budgets,” said Sanjeev Bansal, the chairman of the Delhi unit of the Builders Association of India.
Pollution’s impact on the Indian economy is likely to get worse if action is not taken.
With India’s median age expected to rise to 32 by 2030, the Dalberg study predicts that “susceptibility to air pollution will increase, as will the impact on mortality.”
