A US truck driver has been given the death penalty after being convicted of barging into the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue and killing 11 congregants in an act of antisemitic terror.
A jury concluded that Robert Bowers should receive the death penalty instead of life in prison without parole for carrying out the attack, dubbed the most antisemitic in US history.
Bowers burst into the synagogue on October 27, 2018 and opened fire with an AR-15 rifle and other guns. Seven people, including five police officers, were also wounded in the attack.
pittsburgh shooter Robert Bowers
Robert Bowers (Photo: Butler County Prison)
The same jury that convicted Bowers in June on 63 criminal counts began deliberating his sentence at around 09:30am on Tuesday morning. After 10 hours of deliberations which stretched into Wednesday, they delivered a verdict.
Jurors were unanimous in finding that Bowers' attack was motivated by his hatred of Jews, and that he chose Tree of Life for its location in one the largest and most historic Jewish communities in the US so that he could "maximize the devastation, amplify the harm of his crimes, and instill fear within the local, national, and international Jewish communities."
It was the first federal death sentence imposed during the presidency of Joe Biden, whose 2020 campaign included a pledge to end capital punishment.
However, US federal prosecutors said death was the appropriate punishment for Bowers, citing the vulnerability of his mainly elderly victims and his hate-based targeting of a religious community. Most victims' families said Bowers should die for his crimes.
Tree of Life Synagogue shooting
Mourners outside the Tree of Life Synagogue in Squirrel Hill, Pittsburgh after the shootings (Photo: Getty Images)
The victims of the shooting were Joyce Fienberg, 75; Richard Gottfried, 65; Rose Mallinger, 97; Dr. Jerry Rabinowitz, 66; brothers David Rosenthal, 54, and Cecil Rosenthal, 59; Bernice Simon, 84, and her husband, Sylvan Simon, 86; Dan Stein, 71; Melvin Wax, 87; and Irving Younger, 69.
In closing arguments on Monday, prosecutors said the 50-year-old truck driver was clearly motivated by religious hatred, reminding jurors that Bowers had spread antisemitic content online before the attack and has since expressed pride in the killings.
Meanwhile, Bowers' lawyers had asked jurors to spare his life, asserting that he acted out of a delusional belief that Jewish people were helping to bring about a genocide of white people. They said he had a severe mental illness and endured a difficult childhood.
