Boston Bombing Suspect Buried in Small Virginia Town – Reports

WASHINGTON, May 10 (RIA Novosti) – The body of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried earlier this week in a Muslim cemetery in a small town in Virginia known for its sprawling, popular amusement park, US media reported Friday.

Tsarnaev’s body was interred early Thursday at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in the town of Doswell, Virginia, after numerous cemeteries in his adopted home state of Massachusetts refused to allow burial of the alleged bomber, whom US authorities accuse of carrying out the April 15 bombing at the Boston Marathon, the Boston Herald and other US media reported.

A Virginia woman, Martha Mullen, reached out to several cemeteries and finally received a commitment from the Islamic Funeral Services of Virginia to grant a plot for Tsarnaev’s burial, US News & World Report reported on its website Friday.

Mullen passed the information onto police in Worcester, Massachusetts, where his body was being held in a funeral home, which contacted the Islamic organization to make arrangements, US News & World Report said.

“Jesus tells us ‘love your enemies,’” Mullen said in a statement circulated Friday released to US media by the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond.  “Not to hate them even after they are dead.

Located 25 miles (40 kilometers) north of Virginia’s capital, Richmond, and about 83 miles (134 kilometers) south of Washington DC, the town of Doswell is well known as the home of the Kings Dominion amusement park.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a shootout with police on April 19, four days after a pair of explosions near the finish line of the marathon killed three people and injured more than 260 others. He and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, quickly emerged as suspects in the case.

Investigators believe the brothers, ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who were living in Massachusetts, planted two pressure-cooker bombs laden with shrapnel and explosives near the finish line. Dzhokhar was captured hours after his brother’s death, and is being held in a prison hospital.

The medical examiner released Tamerlan’s body on May 1, but the funeral home in Worcester that accepted it quickly became the site of community protests.

Police said they spent tens of thousands of dollars for security at the home but cemeteries and communities refused to accept the body for burial.