The uncle of a Boston Marathon bombing suspect killed in a gun battle with police arrived at a funeral home Sunday to arrange for his burial.
Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., and three other men met with Worcester funeral home director Peter Stefan. The men who accompanied Tsarni plan to wash and perform Muslim burial rites on the body of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Stefan said.
Tsarnaev, who had appeared in surveillance photos wearing a black cap and was identified as Suspect No. 1, died days after the April 15 bombing, which killed three people and injured more than 260 others.
Stefan said he has received calls from people criticizing him and calling him "un-American'' for being willing to handle Tsarnaev's funeral.
"We take an oath to do this. Can I pick and choose? No. Can I separate the sins from the sinners? No,'' he said. "We are burying a dead body. That's what we do.''
On Sunday, no protesters were gathered outside the funeral home as there had been Friday and Saturday. But several people who drove by the funeral home yelled out their windows, including one man who shouted, "Throw him off a boat like Osama bin Laden!''
Stefan said he hasn't been able to find a cemetery in Massachusetts willing to take the body, but he has received offers to provide a grave and to contribute money toward the funeral expenses from people in other states. Stefan said he plans to ask the city of Cambridge, where Tsarnaev lived, to provide a burial plot, and if Cambridge turns him down, he will seek help from state officials.
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Stefan said Tsarnaev's uncle told him he is anxious to bury his nephew.
"They just want to get it over with. They want to get him buried,'' Stefan said.
Tsarni has denounced the acts that his nephews - Tamerlan and younger brother Dzhokhar - are accused of committing, calling them "losers" and saying they brought shame to the family and the entire Chechen ethnicity. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago with their parents. Both parents returned to Dagestan last year.
Dzhokhar, 19, is in a prison hospital, facing a potential death sentence if convicted of the terrorism plot.
