A US Synagogue Shooter from 2018 was given a death sentence

In the bloodiest anti-Semitic crime in US history five years ago, an American truck driver murdered 11 Jewish worshipers. He was given the death penalty on Wednesday.

According to the federal prosecutor’s office, the 12-person jury unanimously decided that Robert Bowers should be killed for the mass shooting in Pittsburgh on October 27, 2018.

However, it is uncertain if Bowers’ sentence will ever be executed since President Joe Biden’s Justice Department has suspended all federal executions.

All 63 of the allegations brought against the 50-year-old, including hate crimes that resulted in murder and attempted murder, were judged to be true in June.

At Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue, Bowers meticulously hunted down his victims and repeatedly opened fire from close range while yelling, “All Jews must die!”

Fears of a return of neo-Nazis and far-right extremists in the United States were heightened by the tragedy.

Bowers carried out the murders on Shabbat, the Jewish day of rest, while armed with an AR-15 semiautomatic assault rifle and three Glock pistols. He had posted vehement anti-Semitic remarks online.

He was taken into custody at the site of the incident, which injured two more worshipers and numerous police officers but not fatally.

Federal prosecutors officially asked for the death sentence for Bowers in August 2019 after the then-US president, Donald Trump, demanded it.

Since Biden took office, federal prosecutors have never successfully sought and obtained a death sentence, as shown by the judgment on Wednesday.

But since he came to office in January 2021, there have been no executions.

After the Trump administration presided over a record 13 executions in its closing months, Attorney General Merrick Garland put a moratorium on executions in July 2021.

The moratorium would have to be repealed or a new president would have to be elected in order for Bowers to be put to death.

While Bowers did not deny shooting the worshippers, he made the case that his actions were not driven by anti-Semitism.

His defense team said that he had schizophrenia and had offered to plead guilty in return for life in jail, but the prosecution had rejected his offer.

Named “COLD-BLOODED HATER”

Jewish groups applauded the decision.

The Secure Community Network, which offers security guidance to American Jewish organizations, is led by Michael Masters, who described the punishment as “another step on the path to justice.”

According to him, it “sends a message to violent extremists, terrorists, and antisemites everywhere that the United States will not tolerate hate and violence against the Jewish people, nor any people of faith,” he said in a statement.

The American Jewish Committee said that “what should always be top of mind is the memory” of the victims who were killed by “a cold-blooded hater of Jews.”

The US government vigorously investigated this case and proved that such acts will not be tolerated, justified, or diminished, it said. “Ultimately what is of most significance is not how the shooter will spend the last days of his life,” it added.

According to the Anti-Defamation League, Bowers’ trial began in late April and coincided with an increase in anti-Semitic acts in the US.

The Jewish organization with US headquarters recorded 3,697 incidents of harassment, vandalism, and violence in 2022, a 36 percent rise from the previous year and the most since it started collecting data in 1979.

Approximately six million Jews reside in the United States, according to a 2021 Pew Research Center research.