Policeman: I leaked photos of Boston manhunt

A US policeman said he released photographs of accused Boston marathon bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, including one with a red dot of a sniper rifle’s laser sight on his forehead, to counter a “fluffed and buffed” image of him on the cover of Rolling Stone magazine.

Massachusetts State Police Sgt Sean Murphy took the photographs during the manhunt for Tsarnaev, the younger of two brothers accused of killing three people and wounding more than 260 at the Boston Marathon on Apr 15 by detonating two pressure-cooker bombs. The elder brother was killed in the hunt.

Murphy, a police tactical photographer, said he decided to release the images in response to the portrait of Tsarnaev on an upcoming cover of Rolling Stone, saying the picture of him with shaggy hair and a light beard glamorised “the face of terror”.