Washington: The man accused of slaying of nine black church members in Charleston last month was indicted on Wednesday on 33 federal counts, including hate crimes, firearms violations and obstructing the practice of religion, which could include the death penalty.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced the federal grand jury indictments of 21-year-old Dylann Roof. The charges have been expected since Roof was arrested following the June 17 shootings at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in downtown Charleston.
Roof, who is white, appeared in photos waving rebel Confederate flags, and survivors told police that he hurled racial insults during the attack. The shootings prompted an abrupt shift in political willingness to take down the rebel flag from the South Carolina Statehouse grounds and renewed a movement to remove it from the public sphere around the South.
The flag, flown by armies of the secessionist pro-slavery Confederacy during the Civil War, is claimed by some white southerners as a symbol of regional and ancestral pride but has also been used by white supremacists.
