Secret burial of bombs suspect ‘appears legal’

The news that Tsarnaev had been buried on Thursday in a rural Islamic cemetery in Virginia, hundreds of miles from his Massachusetts home shocked officials who said they had not been informed.

But Caroline County sheriff Tony Lippa said officials had looked at the paperwork and the interment appeared legal. He warned that his small department lacked the money and staff to provide a round-the-clock presence at the cemetery.

“The Sheriff’s Office will offer the same amount of protection – no more and no less – to this site as any other cemetery in Caroline County,” Sheriff Lippa said.

The body of Tsarnaev, 26, an ethnic Chechen from Russia, had remained with a Massachusetts undertaker since he was killed on April 19 in a gunfight with police, days after the attack that killed three people and injured 260.

Cemeteries in several states refused to accept the remains and police appealed for help finding a place to bury him.

The woman whose actions led to Tsarnaev being buried in Virginia said local anger had been unpleasant, but she had no regrets. Martha Mullen, a member of the United Methodist Church, said: “Any time you can work with people that are not like you, that’s what God calls us to do.”

Tsarnaev’s younger brother Dzhokhar was captured after a gunfight with police and remains in custody.