2023-08-03 01:18:58
This is a first under the presidency of Joe Biden. The perpetrator of a 2018 attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest against Jews in US history, was sentenced to death by a federal jury on Wednesday.
The 12 jurors of a federal court in Pennsylvania (northeast) voted unanimously in favor of the death penalty against Robert Bowers, according to a statement from the prosecution of the prosecutor Eric Olshan, local representative of the American ministry of Justice.
During the first phase of this exceptional three-month trial – in a context of a surge in anti-Semitic acts and fear of the resurgence of neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups – this 50-year-old driver was tried half- June guilty of 11 aggravated murders nearly five years ago at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Moratorium on capital punishment at the federal level
This sentence must be formally pronounced Thursday by a federal judge, but as the Ministry of Justice has declared a national moratorium on executions, the death penalty may never be applied against Mr. Bowers.
Attorney General Merrick Garland, quoted in the statement, stressed that “all Americans have the right to live without fear of racist violence, and that the perpetrators of such acts will be held accountable”. The question of the death penalty was at the center of this emblematic dossier.
As early as the summer of 2019, the federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh, then under the government of Republican President Donald Trump, had warned that he would seek capital punishment against the author of this “massacre”, citing his “lack of remorse” and ” his hatred and contempt” for the Jews.
During the investigation, Bowers’ lawyers had unsuccessfully offered to plead “guilty” in exchange for the guarantee that their client would not be sentenced to death. The Department of Justice refused.
“All Jews must die”
On October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue armed with three pistols and a semi-automatic assault rifle. Shouting “all Jews must die,” he opened fire and killed 11 people, including a 97-year-old faithful, in the midst of Shabbat ceremonies in a historic Jewish neighborhood in Pittsburgh, committing the bloodiest attack against Jews in UNITED STATES.
He had previously posted racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages on a far-right social network.
Then-President Donald Trump immediately called for the death penalty, a request followed by his then Justice Department and confirmed after Democrat Joe Biden’s presidency began in January 2021. But candidate Biden had pledged in 2020 to abolish the death penalty at the national level, and this trial has revived the debates around this supreme punishment still practiced in many American states.
Increase in anti-Semitic violence
During the hearings, Bowers’ lawyer, Judy Clarke, admitted that he was indeed the man who had shot Jews, a “senseless act” and had first sought to save the skin of his client rather than to plead his innocence.
American Jewish organizations have, as in June, welcomed the jury’s decision, proof for the American Jewish Committee that “the United States does not tolerate hatred or violence against Jews and against any believer of another religion”.
The Bowers trial took place at a time when the number of racist and anti-Semitic crimes and offenses in the United States is at its highest in 30 years, according to statistics from the Federal Police (FBI) quoted by the Washington Post.
According to the organization for the fight against anti-Semitism Anti Defamation League, the first world power had experienced a record number of 2,717 anti-Semitic acts in 2021 (assaults, verbal attacks, material damage, etc.), an increase of 34% compared to to 2020, the year of Covid.
For 2022, this association counted 3,697 anti-Semitic acts (+36% over one year), unheard of since 1979. The United States has the largest number of Jewish people in the world, behind Israel. In 2020, according to the Pew Research Center, there were some 5.8 million Jewish adults in this country, whether religious or not, in addition to 2.8 million adults who claim a parent. Jewish.
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