PITTSBURGH, 13 Jun: A gunman who killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue ranted incessantly on social media about his hatred of Jewish people before the 2018 attack, according to evidence introduced at his federal death penalty trial Tuesday.
\nProsecutors are trying to show Robert Bowers was motivated by extreme hostility toward Jews when he opened fire at the Tree of Life Synagogue during Sabbath services and committed the deadliest antisemitic attack in U.S. history.
\nThe 50-year-old truck driver is charged with 63 criminal counts, including hate crimes resulting in death and the obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death. Some of the charges carry a potential death sentence.
\nWith the trial in its third week, testimony turned toward Bowers\u2019 use of Gab \u2014 a social media platform popular with the far right \u2014 to advance his antisemitic views.
\nBowers\u2019 Gab profile said \u201cJews are the children of Satan,\u201d and he posted, liked or shared a stream of virulently antisemitic content, according to dozens of examples provided to the jury Monday and Tuesday. Bowers called Jews \u201cpublic enemy number one,\u201d according to a post read by an FBI agent, spoke approvingly of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi extermination of Jews, and shared an image that said \u201cthe only good Jew is a dead Jew.\u201d
\nOn the morning of the attack, Bowers posted about HIAS, a Jewish agency that helps refugees resettle in the United States. Dor Hadash, one of the three congregations that shared the Tree of Life building, worked with HIAS.
\n\u201dHIAS likes to bring invaders in that kill our people. I can\u2019t sit by and watch my people get slaughtered. Screw your optics, I\u2019m going in,\u201d Bowers posted. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
PITTSBURGH, 13 Jun: A gunman who killed 11 worshippers at a Pittsburgh synagogue ranted incessantly on social media about his hatred of Jewish people before the 2018 attack, according to evidence introduced at his federal death penalty trial Tuesday. Prosecutors are trying to show Robert Bowers was motivated by extreme hostility toward Jews when he […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-218315","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=218315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/218315\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=218315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=218315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=218315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}