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[audio https://www.peterbcollins.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Baker.mp3]Russ Baker, publisher of WhoWhatWhy.com returns to recap the political show trial that produced a death sentence for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, while sealing off the full story. Baker and his team of reporters provided the most detailed, journalistic coverage of this controversial case, where the corporate media has been content to convey the government’s highly controlled narrative, unchallenged. Review WhoWhatWhy’s reports here.
We open with discussion of the decision to try this local crime as a federal case, which enabled a death penalty despite the Massachusetts ban on capital punishment. The jury was not comprised of “peers”, since all jurors had to support the death penalty in order to be selected, and only about 30% of Boston residents support it.
We note the judge’s refusal to change the venue of the trial, and excessive charges like #6, which connects the death of MIT cop Sean Collier to a bombing, when he was killed with a gun. That the jury ratified such an incoherent charge raises serious questions about their findings of guilt on all charges.
While the focus of the defense team was limited to sparing Tsarnaev’s life, they made little effort to challenge the prosecution’s exaggerations and circumstantial evidence, and did not inform the jury about a range of important issues, like Uncle Ruslan’s ties to the CIA, brother Tamerlan’s contacts with the FBI and other factors that suggest the brothers might be patsies of state agencies.
We review many other unanswered questions, talk about the media’s deplorable coverage of the investigation and trial, the testimony of “Danny” that Tamerlan confessed to the Marathon bombing, the unknown role of security contractors from Craft International who swarmed immediately after the bombs went off, and reports of a Homeland Security drill at the finish line.
Baker sees an orchestrated effort to prevent Dzhokhar Tsarnaev from ever telling his story, which he may take with him to the death chamber.