Three people were killed and about 260 wounded on April 15 last year when two bombs made of explosives-packed pressure cookers went off near the finish line of the Boston marathon. Several of the injured lost limbs.
Tsarnaev, then 19, and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev were cornered by police after a four-day manhunt. Tamerlan died after an exchange of fire with police and Dzhokhar was wounded.
"The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision," Holder said in a statement yesterday on the prosecution of the 20-year-old, a US citizen from a Chechen Muslim family.
The shaggy-haired onetime student has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges related to the bombings, including 17 serious charges that can carry sentences of death or life in prison.
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These charges include using a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death, as well as conspiracy and bombing of a place of public use resulting in death, and carjacking.
The brothers are said to have built the bombs with help from an online Al-Qaeda magazine, but they are not accused of having received help from any organized foreign terror group.
Carmen Ortiz, the federal prosecutor in Massachusetts, home to Boston, said in a statement: "We support this decision and the trial team is prepared to move forward with the prosecution."
She added: "The case will now continue to proceed through the pre-trial process and the next scheduled court event is a status conference set for February 12, 2014."
Massachusetts abolished the death penalty in 1982, but Tsarnaev is accused under federal law.