Boston Marathon bombing accused Dzhokhar Tsarnaev on Wednesday went on trial for his life, but in a rare turn of event his own lawyer was found candidly admitting before the jury that her client committed the crime. However, the defense maintained that the accused was under influence of his older brother.

“It was him,” defense attorney Judy Clarke said of Tsarnaev in her startling opening statement in America’s biggest terrorism trial since the bombing in Oklahoma City around 20 years ago.

Clarke, one of the foremost death-penalty defense attorneys of the country, laid the argument in an attempt to save Tsarnaev from the death penalty.

Presenting her argument, Clarke said that the defense does not intend to save Tsarnaev from a guilty verdict and “will not try to sidestep his involvement in the senseless, horrendously misguided terror acts that was carried out by the two brothers in 2013″.

“The evidence will not establish and we will not argue that Tamerlan put a gun to Dzhokhar’s head or that he forced him to join in the plan, but you will hear evidence about the kind of influence that this older brother had,” the defense attorney said.

Two pressure-cooker bombs packed with shrapnel were blasted near the finishing line of a marathon in Boston on April 15, 2013. The twin explosions claimed lives of three and injured more than 260 people.

Tsarnaev, who was then 19-year-old, is accused of carrying out the twin bomb blasts accompanied by his brother Tamerlan (26), who died in the getaway attempt few days later.