Boston Marathon bomb attacks were “retaliation,” sources tell NBC

May 16, 2013 14:13 GMT  ·  By
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said Boston attacks were “retaliation for American action against Muslims”
   Dzhokhar Tsarnaev said Boston attacks were “retaliation for American action against Muslims”

As he was hiding in a boat after a day-long manhunt, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two bombers responsible for the Boston Marathon attacks, scribbled a note explaining his and his brother’s actions.

His brother, Tamerlan, had been killed in a shootout with police hours before.

In the note, Dzhokhar said pretty much the same things he told investigators hours later from a hospital bed, NBC reports: the attacks were “retaliation.”

“Bleeding and hunted by police, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev scrawled a note inside the hull of the boat where he was hiding saying that the Boston Marathon bombings were retaliation for American action against Muslims, sources told NBC News,” the publication reports.

“In the note, Tsarnaev, the lone surviving suspect in the marathon attack, said many of the things he told investigators from his hospital bed days later, after his capture, the sources said,” NBC adds.

Police are still investigating to determine when Tamerlan’s process of radicalization began. Meanwhile, his younger brother is facing the death penalty, having been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction.