BOMBING AT BOSTON MARATHON-GRAPHIC PHOTOS

[Duchess]

The body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspected Boston Marathon bomber whose burial was surrounded by controversy during the past week, was interred Thursday in an Islamic cemetery in central Virginia, an imam confirmed.

Imam Ammar Amonette of the Richmond-based Islamic Center of Virginia said Friday that Tsarnaev was buried at Al-Barzakh Cemetery, a small cemetery in Doswell, Va., a rural community 25 miles north of Richmond.

"It's a small, privately owned plot on the countryside that has the graves of a few dozen people at the most," said Amonette, who confirmed news of the burial with a contact at the cemetery on Friday, but said his mosque is not connected to it.

Amonette said the burial was arranged by Martha Mullen, a 48-year-old Richmond resident who independently contacted the cemetery after hearing reports on National Public Radio that dozens of burial grounds had refused to give space to Tsarnaev's body. Mullen did not return a phone call from The Huffington Post on Friday.

In an interview with the Boston Globe, Mullen, a professional counselor who has a degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, said it was her Christian faith that motivated her to contact the cemetery to arrange the burial.

"Jesus says [to] love our enemies,” said Mullen. “So I was sitting in Starbucks and thought, maybe I’m the one person who needs to do something.”

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