Donald Trump demanded on Sunday that the Boston Marathon bomber be re-sentenced to death, criticizing the recent overturn of his sentence by an appeals court.

Steph Deschamps / August 3, 2020

"So many lives lost or ruined": the death penalty "has rarely been so deserved" as for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, tweeted the US president, who is leading a re-election campaign focused on "firmness ».

"The federal government must once again demand the death penalty (...) our country cannot leave the appeal decision in force," he said.

Citing issues in the selection of jurors, a federal appeals court in Boston on Friday overturned part of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's judgment and referred his case to a lower court for reconsideration. Whatever the outcome, he will remain sentenced, at a minimum, to life imprisonment.

A student of Chechen descent, he was sentenced to death in June 2015 for planting, along with his older brother, Tamerlane, two homemade bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three and injuring 264.

His defense has always claimed that the young man, 19 at the time (27 today), was under the influence of his eldest child.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed by law enforcement three days after the attack, following a manhunt in suburban Boston. While on the run the two brothers shot dead a policeman.

Donald Trump regularly calls for an increased use of the death penalty, and as the November 3 election approaches, his government seems determined to carry out a record number of federal executions.

Returning to a practice that had been interrupted for 17 years, the Republican administration has already carried out three lethal injections in July. Four more are planned for August and September.

In the United States, most crimes are tried at the state level, with federal courts hearing only the most serious acts or committed on Indian reservations or on military bases.

Since 1988, only three people have been executed for a federal crime.