Boston Marathon Bombings Update: Tamerlan Tsarnaev buried in Virginia
(CBS/AP) Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried Thursday in a cemetery in Virginia with the help of a faith coalition, his uncle said Friday.
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Martha Mullen, of Richmond, told The Associated Press she helped with the controversial burial.
"It was an interfaith effort," she said. "Basically because Jesus says love your enemies."
The burial this week ended a frustrating search for a community willing to take the body, which had been kept at a funeral parlor in Worcester, Massachusetts, as cemeteries in Massachusetts and several other states refused to accept the remains.
Tsarnaev was killed April 19 in a getaway attempt after a gun battle with police. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, was captured later and remains in custody.
The Tsarnaevs' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Maryland, took responsibility for arranging the burial after Tamerlan's wife, Katherine Russell, said she wanted the body released to her in-laws.
Tsarni said Tsarnaev was buried in a cemetery in Doswell, Virginia, near Richmond, though he would not say more about the faith coalition that helped.
"The body's buried. That's it," he said.
The Boston Globe reports that two sources say Tsarnaev was buried at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery, which it describes as the first Muslim cemetery in central Virginia.
Tsarnaev's uncle took the body from the Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Home in Worcester at 3 a.m. Thursday in a rented van, sources told CBS station WBZ-TV. Tsarni told CBS News his nephew was "buried with the help of the good people of this country" Thursday.
Several friends attended the funeral, and Tsarni called his brother, Tamerlan's father, to tell him his son was buried, he told CBS News.
With costs to protect the funeral home mounting, Worcester police earlier appealed for help finding a place to bury Tsarnaev. They announced Thursday that "as a result of our public appeal for help, a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased."
Tsarnaev was pronounced dead at a hospital in Boston, where he could have been buried under state law, because the city was his place of death. But Boston officials said they wouldn't take the body because Tsarnaev lived in Cambridge, and Cambridge also refused.
His mother also said Russia refused to allow his body into the country so she could bury him in her native Dagestan, but Russian authorities would not comment on that contention.
Complete coverage of the Boston bombings on Crimesider
