Thread: Funeral director: Bomber’s mom wants body buried in Russia

Funeral director: Bomber’s mom wants body buried in Russia

Monday, May 6, 2013
By: Laurel J. Sweet

WORCESTER — The distraught mother of Boston Marathon bombing mastermind Tamerlan Tsarnaev wants his body sent home to Russia, the funeral director caring for the remains said today.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva called Peter A. Stefan “in tears” yesterday afternoon, said Stefan, whose Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlor has been seeking a Massachusetts cemetery that will accept Tsarnaev’s body since Friday.

“The woman was in tears,” Stefan said. “She just said, ‘It would be nice if you could get him home.’ She’d love to have him back there, obviously. Regardless of what he did, she’s still his mother. What are you going to say to her? What can you say?”

Stefan said the body has been cleansed per Muslim tradition by Tsarnaev’s uncle, is wrapped in shrouds and is ready to be shipped or interred locally. No community has been willing to take it.

“I have refrigeration. I can hold him for a long time,” Stefan said. “It’d be a great idea if we could send him to Russia, but I would have to have something from the State Department. This is a national security situation. We can’t just send a body over like we’re dumping it.”

Gov. Deval Patrick said this morning the state will not intervene.

“This isn’t a state or a federal issue; it’s the family’s issue,” the governor told reporters at an event in New Bedford. “And the family has some options. I assume they will make a decision soon. I hope they do. I think everybody is feeling upset about what happened. But we showed the world in the immediate aftermath of the attacks what a civilization looks like, and I’m proud of what we showed and I think we continue to do that by stepping back and let the family make their decisions.”

The governor said if the body is buried in Massachusetts, he is not concerned the gravesite could become a shrine for Tsarnaev’s admirers or a magnet for protesters.

“Look, we are a strong community,” Patrick said. “We have strong feelings about the people who hurt us, but I think our focus now has to be on prosecuting those involved, and getting to the end of the investigation, which is ongoing, and repairing our communities, so that we can move forward.”

Given the difficulty in finding a cemetery, Stefan said, Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, now “just wants a burial. It doesn’t even have to be a Muslim grave. That’s how far along we are.”

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who is on a terror watch list and is the subject of an outstanding warrant for shoplifting, has not returned to the U.S. since her 26-year-old son was fatally shot in a gunfight with police in Watertown April 19 and run over by his 19-year-old sibling with their getaway car.

Worcester Police Chief Gary J. Gemme met with Stefan this morning at the funeral home, which has been the target of about a half-dozen protesters since Friday.

“Rest in hell!” and “Get that trash out of our city!” passers-by yelled out this morning.

“I think the American public is going to realize, we bury everybody,” Stefan said. “Right now emotions are running high.”

He said he’ll foot the bill himself to put Tsarnaev’s body on a plane, if Secretary of State John F. Kerry can assure him it will be respectfully dealt with on the other end of the flight.

“I’ll pay for it myself. It’s only a couple thousand dollars. My question is, is someone going to do something once I get him there? Not go back and forth and hold him there because he’s a terrorist or whatever,” Stefan said. “That day, have a service, a burial and end it. This is becoming an international political football.”

http://bostonherald.com/news_opinion...ried_in_russia

Russia. Now that sounds like the right place for that body.