In particular, Robert Bowers is accused of having committed 11 murders aggravated by the qualification of anti-Semitic act in October 2018 against a synagogue in Pittsurgh. He faces the death penalty.
The trial of the alleged perpetrator of a 2018 attack on a Pittsburgh synagogue, the deadliest against Jews in American history, and for which he faces the death penalty, opened Tuesday amid a wave of anti-Semitic acts in the country.
The selection of the jury in the federal court of Pennsylvania (northeast) had started on April 24 for a duration of four weeks, and the trial started in earnest on Tuesday to convict Robert Bowers, 50, prosecuted on 63 counts.
This white driver, who denies guilt, is accused in particular of having committed 11 murders aggravated by the qualification of anti-Semitic act. On October 27, 2018, he burst into the “Tree of Life” Synagogue in Pittsburgh, armed with three pistols and a semi-automatic assault rifle.
Shouting “all Jews must die,” he opened fire and killed 11 people, including a 97-year-old worshiper, amid Shabbat ceremonies in a historic Pittsburgh Jewish neighborhood, in the deadliest attack on Jews in the United States.
The debate on the death penalty revived
Before that, he had posted racist, anti-Semitic and anti-immigrant messages on a far-right social network.
Then-President Republican Donald Trump had sought the death penalty for Robert Bowers, a request pursued by the Justice Department and upheld after Democratic President Joe Biden’s term began on January 20, 2021.
But while in 2020 candidate Biden had promised to abolish the death penalty at the national level, this trial in the United States is reviving the debates surrounding this highest punishment, which is still practiced in many American states.
As early as 2019, the federal prosecutor in Pittsburgh had indicated that he would seek the death penalty for Robert Bowers, citing his “lack of remorse” and “his hatred and contempt” for Jews.
A context of growing racist and anti-Semitic acts
This trial, which according to the press was supposed to last until July, takes place in the context of an increase in racist and anti-Semitic acts in the United States, which has reached the highest level in 30 years, according to statistics from the federal police. , FBI, cited in April by washington post.
According to the American anti-Semitism organization Anti Defamation League, the country had experienced a record number of 2,717 anti-Semitic acts in 2021 (assaults, verbal attacks, property damage, etc.), an increase of 34% over a year.
In 2022, this association counted 3,697 anti-Semitic acts (+36% over a year), unheard of since 1979, according to washington post.
