Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in a secret midnight service at an undisclosed location after a mystery benefactor came forward – ending weeks of controversy.
According to federal officials, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was taken from the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlor and entombed under cover of darkness outside of the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, where his remains have laid since last Friday.
The burial location was approved by Ruslan Tsarni, the Boston Marathon suspects’ outspoken uncle, who has been attempting to find a cemetery that would accept his nephew for burial.
“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,” said Worcester police in a statement this morning.
“His body is no longer in the city of Worcester and is now entombed.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was finally buried one day after Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme pleaded for help in burying the suspect – who was killed in a firefight with police on April 19th in Watertown, just outside of Boston.
“There is a need to do the right thing,” said Gary Gemme.
“We are not barbarians. We bury the dead.”
The statement did not say where his body now rests.
Peter Stefan, the director of the funeral home had previously expressed his strong desire to find a proper burial site for Tamerlan Tsarnaev despite protests outside the funeral home and the refusal of Cambridge to take his body for burial.
Before today’s announcement, a retired Vermont school teacher, Paul Keane had yesterday offered up his family’s plot in Hamden, Connecticut.
He intended the offer to be a tribute to his mother, who taught him to, “love thine enemy”.
Paul Keane told reporters that he didn’t withdraw the offer, even after he received hate-mail – but no one from Worcester contacted him.
And the firm responsible for digging graves at the Mount Carmel Cemetery said that they have dug no fresh graves this week.
And on Monday, the founder of the organization that built Colorado’s largest mosque is offered to bury suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a Denver-area Muslim cemetery.
Sheikh Abu-Omar Almubarac said he would pay for a traditional Muslim burial – no headstone, monument or casket – at a plot at a Muslim cemetery in Denver or Bennett.
He refused to say which one out of concern for “undue publicity”. He said he would bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev as long as his family can get the body to Denver.
It is not known whether the family of Tamerlan Tsarnaev took him up on that offer.
Sgt. Kerry Hazelhurst with the Worcester police force said the body was no longer in Worcester and is now entombed. She did not disclose where the body was taken.
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