Boston bomber buried at midnight in secret ceremony after mystery benefactor claims his body

• Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in an undisclosed location outside the city of Worcester, Massachusetts
• An anonymous individual came forward to offer assistance to bury Tsarnaev
• The burial came one day after Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme asked for assistance in burying the terrorist
• He was killed in a firefight with police on April 19th in Watertown, outside Boston
  

By James Nye

PUBLISHED: 09:27 EST, 9 May 2013 | UPDATED: 12:30 EST, 9 May 2013

The elder Boston marathon Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in a secret midnight service at an undisclosed location after a mystery benefactor came forward - ending weeks of controversy.

According to federal officials the body was taken from the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlor and entombed under cover of darkness outside of the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, where his remains have laid since last Friday.

The burial location was approved by Ruslan Tsarni, the terror suspects outspoken uncle, who has been attempting to find a cemetery that would accept his nephew for burial.

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Tamerlan Tsarnaev has finally been buried at an undisclosed location outside of the city of Worcester, Massachusetts

 

Boston bomber buried in secret midnight ceremony

'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,' said Worcester police in a statement this morning.

'His body is no longer in the city of Worcester and is now entombed.'

The body was finally buried one day after Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme pleaded for help in burying Tsarnaev - who was killed in a firefight with police on April 19th in Watertown, just outside of Boston.

'There is a need to do the right thing,' said Gemme said. 'We are not barbarians. We bury the dead.'

The statement did not say where his body now rests

Peter Stefan, the director of the funeral home had previously expressed his strong desire to find a proper burial site for Tsarnaev despite protests outside the funeral home and the refusal of Cambridge to take his body for burial.

Worcester police Sgt. Kerry Hazelsays a 'courageous and compassionate' individual came forth and helped to provide a burial spot for the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev

(From left), Lisa Taurasi, Lucy Rodriguez and Luis Barbosa, all of Worcester, Mass., hold protest signs as they stand across the street from Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, Mass. on Sunday evening

Police keep watch outside Graham, Putnam, and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester on Monday, where the body of killed Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was kept

Ruslan Tsarni, (right), uncle of killed Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, enters the Graham, Putnam, and Mahoney Funeral Parlors, in Worcester, on Sunday, May 5th

Ruslan Tsarni, (right), uncle of killed Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, prepares to speak with reporters as funeral director and owner Peter Stefan, (left), stands nearby

Before today's announcement, a retired Vermont school teacher, Paul Keane had yesterday offered up his family's plot in Hamden, Connecticut.

He intended the offer to be a tribute to his mother, who taught him to, 'love thine enemy.'

Keane told reporters that he didn't withdraw the offer, even after he received hate-mail - but no one from Worcester contacted him.

And the firm responsible for digging graves at the Mount Carmel Cemetery told the MailOnline that they have dug no fresh graves this week.

And on Monday, the founder of the organization that built Colorado's largest mosque is offered to bury suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a Denver-area Muslim cemetery.

Sheikh Abu-Omar Almubarac said he would pay for a traditional Muslim burial - no headstone, monument or casket - at a plot at a Muslim cemetery in Denver or Bennett.

Almubarac refused to say which one out of concern for 'undue publicity.' He said he would bury Tsarnaev as long as his family can get the body to Denver.

It is not known whether the family of Tsarnaev took him up on that offer.

Fiona Gilley, (left), and her sister Nairi Melkonian, both of Worcester, hold signs urging compassion while they stand on the other side of the street from protestors in Worcester

Peter Stefan, funeral director and owner of Graham, Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors confirmed his funeral home will handle funeral arrangements for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev

Sgt. Kerry Hazelhurst with the Worcester police force said the body was no longer in Worcester and is now entombed. She did not disclose where the body was taken.

Tsarnaev’s body had been at the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlors for a week.

Meanwhile, Tsarnaev’s widow continues to face questions from federal authorities and has hired a criminal lawyer with experience defending terrorism cases.

Katherine Russell added New York lawyer Joshua Dratel to her legal team, her attorney Amato DeLuca said Wednesday.

Dratel has represented a number of terrorism suspects in federal courts and military commissions, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee David Hicks, who attended an al-Qaida-linked training camp in Afghanistan.

Dratel’s 'unique, specialized experience' will help ensure that Russell 'can assist in the ongoing investigation in the most constructive way possible,' DeLuca said in a statement.

He said Russell, who has not been charged with any crime, will continue to meet with investigators as 'part of a series of meetings over many hours where she has answered questions.'

Providence-based DeLuca and Miriam Weizenbaum have been representing Russell, who is from Rhode Island. They specialize in civil cases such as personal injury law.

An FBI spokeswoman wouldn’t comment when asked Wednesday whether Russell is cooperating. DeLuca has said Russell had no reason to suspect her husband and his brother in the deadly April 15 bombing.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechen brothers from southern Russia and living in Massachusetts, are accused of planting two shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs near the marathon finish line, killing three people and injuring about 260.

Dzhokhar, who was captured hiding in a tarp-covered boat outside a house in a Boston suburb, was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill. Their mother has said the charges against them are lies.

In Washington, the first in a series of hearings was planned Thursday to review government’s initial response to the bombing, what information authorities received about the brothers before the bombings and whether they handled it correctly.

Sheikh Abu Omar Almubarac, a prominent member of the Denver-area Muslim community offered to bury Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a Denver-area cemetery on Tuesday

The hearing on Capitol Hill comes less than three weeks after Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest.

The FBI and CIA separately received vague warnings from Russia’s government in 2011 that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother were religious militants.

Russell, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife, had wanted his body turned over to his side of the family, which claimed it.

Nineteen days after his death, cemeteries still refused to take his remains and government officials deflected questions about where he could be buried.

On Wednesday, police in Worcester, west of Boston, pleaded for a resolution, saying they were spending tens of thousands of dollars to protect the funeral home where his body is being kept amid protests.

'We are not barbarians,' Police Chief Gary Gemme said. 'We bury the dead.'

It is unknown if Katherine Russell, widow of Boston Marathon bomber suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, (left), was at the burial - but Ruslan Tsarni (right) approved the site

An expert in U.S. burial law said the resistance to Tsarnaev’s burial is unprecedented in a country that has always found a way to put to rest its notorious killers, from Lee Harvey Oswald to Adam Lanza, who gunned down 20 children and six educators at a Newtown, Connecticut elementary school last year.

Peter Stefan, whose funeral home accepted Tsarnaev’s body last week, said Tuesday that none of the 120 offers of graves from the U.S. and Canada has worked out because officials in those cities and towns don’t want the body.