Uncle Arranging Boston Bomb Suspect's Burial: Cemeteries Refusing to Take Body

The uncle of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived at a funeral home Sunday to arrange his burial, according to the Associated Press.

Ruslam Tsarni and three other men met with Worcester funeral home director Peter Stefan. The men who accompanied Tsarni will wash and perform Muslim burial rites on the body of 26-year-old Tsarnaev, who was killed in a gunbattle with police after an intensive manhunt.

Stefan said he has received numerous phone calls from people calling him "un-American" for handling Tsarnaev's funeral.

"We take an oath to do this. Can I pick and choose? No. Can I separate the sins from the sinners? No," he said. "We are burying a dead body. That's what we do."

Protestors gathered outside the funeral home holding signs and American flags. One read: "Do not bury him on U.S. soil." The half dozen protestors were chanting "USA!" Several people drove by the funeral home earlier Sunday and yelled. One shouted, "Throw him off a boat like Osama bin Laden!"

Stefan said cemeteries in Massachusetts are not willing to take the body. He has received offers to provide a grave and contribute toward the funeral expenses from people in other states. Stefan plans to ask the city of Cambridge, where Tsarnaev lived, to provide a burial plot. If Cambridge turns him down, he will ask state officials for help.

Tsarnaev's uncle told Stefan he is anxious to bury his nephew.

"They just want to get it over with. They want to get him buried," Stefan said.

Tsarni has called the acts of his nephews - Tamerlan and younger brother Dzhokhar, who is currently in a prison hospital facing a potential death sentence - shameful to the family and the entire Chechen ethnicity. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States ten years ago.