The perpetrator of a 2018 armed attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest against Jews in US history, was sentenced to death by a federal jury on Wednesday, US media reported . But the sentence may not be carried out, due to a moratorium on federal executions. A total of 11 people were murdered in the attack.
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This is a first under the presidency of Joe Biden. The twelve members of the jury voted unanimously in favor of capital punishment against Robert Bowers, according to these media.
During the first phase of this exceptional trial, in a context of growing anti-Semitic acts in the United States, this white driver had been found guilty in mid-June of having carried out eleven murders with aggravating circumstances on October 27, 2018 in Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life Synagoguein the northeastern United States.
This sentence should then be formally pronounced by a federal judge. This sentence may not be carried out, however, because the Department of Justice has instituted a moratorium on federal executions.
The issue of the death penalty was central in this case. As early as 2019, the federal prosecutor of Pittsburgh had warned that he would seek the death penalty against the killerciting his ” lack of remorse ” And ” his hatred and his contempt for Jews.
During the investigation phase, lawyers for Robert Bowers had offered in vain to plead “ guilty » in exchange for the guarantee that their client would not be sentenced to death. The Department of Justice refused.
On October 27, 2018, Robert Bowers burst into the Tree of Life Synagogue armed with three pistols and a semi-automatic assault rifle. Calling out “ all jews must die “, he had opened fire and killed eleven people, including a 97-year-old faithful, in the middle of a Shabbat ceremony in a historic Jewish district of Pittsburgh, committing the bloodiest attack against this community in the United States.
Before that, he had posted racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages on a far-right social network.
Trial that revived debates on capital punishment
Then-President Donald Trump had sought the death penalty, a request followed by the then Justice Department and upheld after Democratic President Joe Biden’s term began on January 20, 2021.
But while candidate Biden had pledged in 2020 to abolish the death penalty at the national level, this trial has revived the debates around this supreme punishment still practiced in many American states.
During the proceedings of the trial, his lawyer Judy Clarke had immediately recognized that his client was indeed the man who had shot at Jews. “ There is no point in looking for meaning in a senseless act “, she had defended, seeking above all to save the life of Bowers rather than to plead his innocence.
American Jewish organizations have, as in June, welcomed this verdict. The latter would be proof, according to the American Jewish Committee (AJC), that ” the United States does not tolerate hatred or violence against Jews and against any follower of any other religion “.
Surge in racist and anti-Semitic acts
The Bowers trial took place against a backdrop of a surge in racist and anti-Semitic acts in the United States, at their highest level in 30 years, according to statistics from the federal police, the FBI, cited in April by the daily washington post.
According to the American organization for the fight against anti-Semitism Anti Defamation League, the first world power had experienced in 2021 a record number of 2,717 anti-Semitic acts (aggression, verbal attacks, material damage, etc.). This was a 34% increase from 2020, the year of Covid and lockdowns.
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 the United States, whether religious or not, to which must be added 2.8 million adults who claim a Jewish relative.
(With AFP)