The 50-year-old is facing the death penalty for killing 11 Jews in a synagogue on October 27, 2018.
The trial of the Pittsburgh shooting, the deadliest anti-Semitic attack in American history and for which the alleged perpetrator faces the death penalty, opened Monday by jury selection in federal court in Pennsylvania.
Robert Bowers is tried on 63 counts and risks the death penalty for having committed aggravated murders of the qualification of anti-Semitic act.
Eleven dead on Shabbat
On October 27, 2018, this then 46-year-old truck driver burst into the “Tree of Life” synagogue in Pittsburgh armed with three pistols and a semi-automatic assault rifle, after posting anti-Semitic messages on a site far right.
He had opened fire and killed eleven people in the middle of the Shabbat ceremony, committing the bloodiest attack against Jews in the United States.
Three years after Joe Biden’s campaign commitment to abolish the death penalty at the federal level, this trial revives debates around capital punishment.
As early as 2019, the Pittsburgh federal prosecutor had indicated that he would require it for Robert Bowers, citing his “lack of remorse” and “his hatred and contempt” for Jews.
