MOSCOW, May 13 (RAPSI) - The sheriff of Caroline County, Virginia, where residents and officials alike are distressed over the burial of one of the Boston bombing suspects in their local area, said Saturday that it appears "all paperwork is in order at this point," CNN reports.
On Thursday morning, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried in an unmarked grave in Al-Barzakh Muslim Cemetery in Doswell, Virginia, after he was denied the right to be buried in Massachusetts, where he was living before his death and in several other states. His burial in Doswell came as a surprise for local authorities, who said they would check to see that procedure had been followed.
"Unfortunately, we now find ourselves forever connected to this tragedy in the most unsavory way, as the final resting place of one of the alleged terrorists," Caroline County Sheriff Tony Lippa said.
In a statement Saturday, the sheriff said that he and the mayor of Bowling Green, Virginia, who also owns a funeral home, spent the previous night examining Tsarnaev's death certificate, burial permit official disposition, a removal or transportation permit from Massachusetts and the documents from the Caroline County Circuit Court.
In Caroline County, local officials do not need to be consulted or have to approve the burial of a person on county land in advance.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a shootout with police on April 19, four days after a pair of explosions near the finish line of the Boston Marathon killed three people and injured more than 260. He and his brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, quickly emerged as suspects in the case.
Investigators believe that the brothers, ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who were living in Massachusetts, planted two pressure-cooker bombs filled with shrapnel and explosives near the finish line. Dzhokhar was captured hours after his brother's death, and is being held in a prison hospital.