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BOSTON Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to death for his despicable and cowardly crime.

The 21-year-old was sentenced to death by lethal injection by U.S. District Judge George O'Toole.

Judge O'Toole said: "Whenever your name is mentioned what will be remembered is the evil you have done.

"What will be remembered is that you murdered and maimed innocent people, you did it intentionally."

He then asked Tsarnaev to stand.

His next words were:"I sentence you to death by execution."

(Image: Reuters/Getty)

Just before his sentence, the killer told the Federal Court in Boston that he was sorry for his crime and the misery he inflicted upon innocent people.

He said: "I would like to begin in the name of Allah.

"I ask forgiveness of Allah and to his creation.

"I would like to thank the jury, the court. I would like to now apologise to the victims, to the survivors"

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"Immediately after the bombing which I am guilty of...I learned their faces, their names.

"I am sorry for the lives that I've taken, the suffering that I've caused and the damage that I've done, irreparable damage"

"I pray to Allah to put his mercy upon the deceased, the injured.

"I ask Allah to have mercy upon me, my brother, my family."

NECN reporter Alysha Palumbo tweeted: "The courtroom was completely silent as Tsarnaev spoke quietly. Some survivors are now wiping away tears."

(Image: REUTERS/Dominick Reuter)

Earlier in today’s hearing, parents of the dead and some of the scores wounded in the 2013 attack defiantly confronted Tsarnaev today, calling him "cowardly" at the hearing.

The same federal jury that earlier this year found Tsarnaev guilty of killing three people and injuring 264 in the bombing and its aftermath voted in May to sentence him to death by lethal injection.

Rebekah Gregory, who lost her left leg in one of the highest-profile attacks on U.S. soil since September 11, 2001, addressed Tsarnaev directly.

"Terrorists like you do two things in this world. One, they create mass destruction, but the second is quite interesting,” Gregory said.

(Image: Getty)

"Because do you know what mass destruction really does? It brings people together.

"We are Boston strong and we are America strong, and choosing to mess with us was a terrible idea.

"How's that for your victim impact statement?" she asked.

Ed Fucarile, whose son Marc lost his right leg in the attack, stared at the bomber as he read a statement.

"The first time I saw you in this courtroom, you were smirking at all the victims for your unspeakable cowardly act.

(Image: REUTERS)

"You don't seem to be smirking today," Fucarile said. “Your sentence today should be severe as possible.”

Tsarnaev, who appeared in court dressed in a dark sport jacket and open-collared shirt, looked down and showed no emotion during the hearing.

Gregory and Fucarile were part of a stream of two dozen survivors of the attack and relatives of the slain who discussed the pain they had suffered as a result of the blasts.

Several runners, some tearful, addressed the guilt they suffered for the injuries suffered by friends who had come to cheer them on.

Tsarnaev's trial brought back some of Boston's darkest living memories. Jurors saw videos of the bombs’ blinding flashes and the chaotic aftermath on April 15, 2013 as emergency workers and spectators rushed to aid the wounded, many of whom lost legs.

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The bombing killed Martin Richard, 8, and Chinese exchange student Lingzi Lu, 26, and restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29.

Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, shot dead Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, 26, three days after the bombing.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died following a gunfight with police that ended when Dzhokhar ran him over with a car.

During the trial, federal prosecutors described the ethnic Chechen brothers as adherents of al Qaeda's militant Islamist ideology who wanted to "punish America" with the attack on the world-renowned race.

Tsarnaev's lawyers admitted their client had played a role in the attack but tried to portray him as the junior partner in a scheme hatched and driven by his older brother.

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The Tsarnaev family came to the United States from Russia a decade before the attack.

The parents of Martin Richard, the youngest to die in the attack, directly addressed the defense's claim, saying the younger Tsarnaev could have prevented the attack.

"He could have stopped his brother," said William Richard, who testified during the trial about the agonising decision he made to leave his son to die in his wife's arms so that he could save the life of his daughter, Jane, who lost a leg in the attack.

"He could have changed his mind the morning of April 15, 2013, walked away with a minimal sense of humanity and reported to authorities that his brother intended to hurt others,” Richard said.

"He chose to do nothing, to prevent all of this from happening and he chose to accompany his brother and participate in this hate."

Tsarnaev, who did not testify in his own defence during the trial, is expected to appeal.

Even after the sentencing, the legal wrangling over Tsarnaev's fate could play out over years, if not decades.

Just three of the 74 people sentenced to death in the United States for federal crimes since 1998 have been executed.

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