BOSTON: Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been indicted on 30 counts, including the use of a weapon of mass destruction, over the April attacks, federal prosecutors said yesterday. Tsarnaev, 19, faces the death penalty or life imprisonment on 17 of the counts. Three people were killed and more than 260 were wounded in the bombings at the finish line of the Boston marathon. The teen has also been charged with shooting dead a campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology as he and his accomplice brother Tamerlan attempted to steal his vehicle. Tamerlan, 26, was killed in a gun battle with police three days after the April 15 bombings. Among the other charges delivered against the younger Tsarnaev are bombing of a public place, malicious destruction of property resulting in death, carjacking and firearms offenses. A Muslim of Chechen origin, Tsarnaev was naturalised as an American citizen last year.
Briton held over mosque bombing
LONDON: British police arrested a 75-year-old man yesterday on suspicion of planting a home-made bomb that exploded near a mosque. Police said the man was arrested by counter-terrorism officers at his home in Walsall, central England, where the small bomb exploded last Friday. There has been a spike in anti-Muslim incidents in Britain since a soldier was murdered on a London street last month in a suspected Islamist attack. Nobody was hurt in the Walsall explosion and damage was minimal, police said. The suspect was arrested on suspicion of causing an explosion likely to endanger life or damage property. He was being questioned at a police station and his home was being searched. Around 150 people had to be evacuated from their homes after the bomb was discovered outside the Aisha Mosque, while police launched a major hate crime investigation.
Missoni heir’s plane found in Venezuela
CARACAS: A small plane that disappeared in January off the coast of Venezuela with six people aboard, including the scion of Italy’s Missoni fashion family, has been found, officials said yesterday. Venezuelan interior ministry spokesman Jorge Galindo announced the discovery of the plane, which had left Los Roques islands on January 4 en route to Caracas, on Twitter. Attorney General Luisa Ortega Diaz told reporters that the aeroplane was 250 feet under water, north of the Caribbean archipelago of Los Roques. The aeroplane was carrying a pilot, a co-pilot and four passengers, including 58-year-old Vittorio Missoni — the son of the eponymous fashion label’s founder Ottavio Missoni — his wife Maurizia Castiglioni and another Italian couple.
Agencies
