The suspect in the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting that left 11 people dead is expected to make a brief appearance in federal court Thursday to be arraigned on a 44-count indictment, including hate crimes, USA Today reported.
Robert Bowers had been set for a preliminary hearing on the evidence Thursday, but federal prosecutors instead took the case to a grand jury. Authorities say Bowers walked into the Tree of Life Synagogue in the city’s affluent Squirrel Hill neighborhood Saturday morning as services were beginning. He shouted anti-Semitic epithets, was heavily armed and started shooting.
Funerals were planned Thursday for Bernice and Sylvan Simon, husband and wife, and Dr. Richard Gottfried, a dentist who worked part-time at a clinic treating refugees and immigrants. The oldest victim, 97-year-old Rose Mallinger, will be honored at a service Friday. Her daughter was injured in the attack.
Bowers, a 46-year-old truck driver, was released from the hospital hours before his first court appearance Monday. He appeared in court in a wheelchair and was being held without bail for the deadliest attack against the Jewish community in U.S. history.
In a statement announcing the indictment, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said the alleged crimes “are incomprehensibly evil and utterly repugnant to the values of this nation. Therefore this case is not only important to the victims and their loved ones, but to the city of Pittsburgh and the entire nation.”
The indictment charges Bowers with killing 11 people, and for each of those victims he faces separate counts of obstruction of free exercise of religion resulting in death and of using a firearm to commit murder during a crime of violence, The Washington Post informed.
Bowers also faces charges of attempting to kill people exercising their religious beliefs and civil rights charges related to injuring several police officers who responded to the attack.
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