A federal judge formally sentenced Robert Bowers to death on Thursday for killing 11 worshippers at Pittsburgh's Tree of Life synagogue in 2018, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in US history.
The sentencing hearing came a day after a jury unanimously voted for the death penalty after finding Bowers guilty on 63 counts, including 11 counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious beliefs resulting in death.
Survivors of the shooting and relatives of Bowers' victims addressed judge Robert Colville during the hearing at the US district court in Pittsburgh in western Pennsylvania. The judge was bound by the jury's decision. “That I am alive today is a miracle for which I am grateful every morning,” Dan Leger, who was badly wounded in the attack, said in court, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported.The jury also convicted Bowers on more than two dozen non-capital crimes, for which Colville sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release.“Frankly, I have nothing specific I care to say directly to Mr Bowers,” the judge said, according to the Post-Gazette. “I mean no particular offence.
Prosecutors successfully argued during the trial that Bowers showed no remorse for his attack on the synagogue during Sabbath morning services. His defence lawyers did not dispute Bowers planned and carried out the attack, in which he moved through the building shooting everyone he found with a semi-automatic rifle and three pistols.
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