Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried outside of Massachusetts on Wednesday after his weeks of waiting for a cemetery to accept his body.
Tsarnaev was buried after his body was taken from Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, a funeral home official briefed on the situation said. The final resting place of Tamerlan , described as the mastermind behind the bombing, was approved by uncle Ruslan Tsarni.
Though Tsarni was vocally aghast at what his nephews had been accused of, he said that as family it was his duty to find a burial place for Tamerlan, who was killed in a gunfight with police four days after the Boston Marathon bombing.
“I’m dealing with logistics,” Tsarni said. “A dead person must be buried.”
The task of burying Tamerlan grew more difficult given Muslim rules for burial, which calls for a body to be interred as quickly as possible, preferably within a day of death.
The burial bring to an end a saga that played out for weeks as the suspected bomber’s body could not find a final resting place. Plans to bury the body in Cambridge fell through when city manager Robert Healy said it would be too traumatizing to residents :
“The difficult and stressful efforts of the citizens of the City of Cambridge to return to a peaceful life would be adversely impacted by the turmoil, protests, and wide spread media presence at such an interment.”
Worcester funeral director Peter Stefan then asked for help in getting Tsarnaev buried. Worcester police commended the unnamed cemetery that stepped up to accept the task of burying the suspected bomber.
“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,” the police said in a statement this morning. “His body is no longer in the city of Worcester and is now entombed.”
It was not disclosed if Tsarnaev was buried according to Muslim custom.