The perpetrator of the 2018 gun attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest against Jews in US historywas sentenced yesterday, Wednesday, to death, something that happens for the first time during the presidency of Joe Biden.
The 12 jurors in Pennsylvania federal court unanimously agreed to sentence Robert Bowers to the maximum penalty, according to a statement from the office of District Attorney Eric Olsan.
In mid-June, during the first phase of this three-month trial, the 50-year-old driver was found guilty of 11 counts of murder when he broke into the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh about five years ago.
Bowers’ sentencing is expected to be formally announced today by a federal judge. However, since the US Department of Justice has declared a moratorium on executions nationwide, Bowers will likely never be executed.
US Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasized that “all Americans have the right to live without fear of being targeted by racist attacks, and the perpetrators of such actions should be held accountable.”
The issue of the death penalty was at the heart of this trial.
“Hatred” for the Jews
As early as the summer of 2019, the then federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh had warned that he would seek the death penalty for the perpetrator of the “massacre”, citing his “lack of remorse” and his “hatred and contempt” for Jews .
Bowers’ lawyers were asking prosecutors to guarantee that their client would not face the death penalty in exchange for a guilty plea. In vain. The Ministry of Justice refused.
On October 27, 2018, Bowers broke into the Tree of Life Synagogue armed with three handguns and a semi-automatic rifle.
Shouting “all Jews must die,” he opened fire on worshipers and killed 11 people, including a 97-year-old woman, during Sabbath prayers in Pittsburgh’s historic Jewish quarter. This is the bloodiest attack against Jews in the USA.
Before launching his attack, Bowers had posted racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages on far-right social media.
Biden is against the death penalty
The then US President Donald Trump had immediately requested the death sentence for the perpetrator, a request that was also made by the Department of Justice and repeated at the beginning of Biden’s presidency in 2021.
But in 2020 during his election campaign the American president had pledged to abolish the death penalty at the federal level. Bowers’ trial has brought the death penalty debate, which is still practiced in some US states, back to the fore.
American Jewish organizations welcomed the jury’s decision, with the American Jewish Committee stressing that “the United States does not tolerate hatred or violence against Jews and against anyone of any other religion.”
Meanwhile, the number of racist and anti-Semitic crimes and offenses in the US is at a 30-year high, according to FBI data.
According to the Anti-Defamation League, a record 2,717 anti-Semitic acts (physical and verbal attacks, vandalism, etc.) were reported in the US in 2021, a 34% increase over 2020.
In 2022, this organization recorded 3,697 such actions, an unprecedented number since 1979.
The USA has the largest number of Jews in the world, after Israel. According to the Pew Research Center, about 5.8 million Jewish adults live in the country, plus 2.8 million adults who have a Jewish parent.
Source: News Beast
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