USA - The U.S. Government will seek the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

The U.S. Government will seek the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement. "Today, United States Attorney General Eric H. Holder, Jr. authorized the government to seek the death penalty in the case of United States v. Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev. We support this decision and the trial team is prepared to move forward with the prosecution," U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, Carmen M. Ortiz, said in a statement. Officials allege that Tsarnaev, then 19, and his 26-year-old brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia who had lived in the Boston area for about a decade, built and planted 2 pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the marathon in April to retaliate against the U.S. for its military action in Muslim countries. The twin blasts killed 3 people and wounded more than 260 others. The brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, died in a shootout with police during a getaway attempt days after the bombing. The Tsarnaev brothers had roots in the turbulent Russian regions of Dagestan and Chechnya, areas that have become recruiting grounds for Islamic extremists. The indictment alleges the brothers downloaded bomb-making instructions from an al-Qaida magazine and gathered material online about Islamic jihad and martyrdom. Killed in the bombings were: Martin Richard, 8, of Boston; Krystle Campbell, 29, of Medford; and Lu Lingzi, 23, a Boston University graduate student from Shenyang, China. At least 16 others lost limbs. Tsarnaev also is charged in the slaying of Sean Collier,  an MIT police officer before he was captured on April 19. Massachusetts abolished its state death penalty in 1984, and repeated efforts to reinstate it have failed. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, 70 death penalty sentences have been imposed, but only 3 people have been executed. A trial date hasn't been set. A status conference hearing is scheduled for February 12, 2014.