Three more charged in Boston Marathon bombing
BOSTON - AP - Three men who attended college with the Boston Marathon suspect have been charged in connection with the case.
Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev are charged with conspiring to obstruct justice. A third man, Robel Phillipos, is charged with making false statements to federal investigators.
An FBI affidavit says the three men removed bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s backpack from his dorm room at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth three days after the bombing.
The affidavit says Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev agreed to get rid of it after concluding from news reports that Tsarnaev was one of the bombers.
A court appearance for the three is scheduled for Wednesday afternoon.
Investigation pushes forward in Boston Marathon bombing
BOSTON (AP) — Investigators have their suspect and are now looking to stitch together the details of the Boston Marathon bombing plot.
FBI agents have picked through a landfill near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where 19-year-old suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR' tsahr-NEYE'-ehv), was a sophomore. FBI spokesman Jim Martin would not say what investigators were looking for.
Also, two college buddies of the suspect have been questioned, but a lawyer says they had nothing to do with the attacks. He says the two are being detained in a Boston jail for violating their student visas by not regularly attending classes.
And U.S. officials said his mother had been added to a federal terrorism database months before the April 15 attack. His mother said it's all "lies."
UPDATE: Officials: Bomb suspects appear driven by religious views
BOSTON (AP) - The next step in the legal process against the surviving Boston Marathon bombing suspect is likely to be an indictment, in which federal prosecutors could add new charges to existing ones that could carry the death penalty.
Still unable to speak because of wounds, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev answered questions in writing yesterday and was officially charged in the bombing.
U.S. officials say Tsarnaev and his brother appear to have been motivated by their religious views, not any connection to any Muslim terrorist groups. The officials made the assessment after Tsarnaev was interrogated in his hospital room, where he's being treated for severe wounds allegedly suffered during violent encounters with law enforcement following the Boston Marathon bombings.
He was charged Monday with federal crimes that could bring the death penalty, including using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.
The brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who had been living in the U.S. for about a decade, practiced Islam.
Bombing suspect charged, could face death penalty
BOSTON (AP) - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was charged in his hospital room Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, and he could get the death penalty.
Tsarnaev, 19, was accused by federal prosecutors of joining with his older brother to set off the two pressure-cooker bombs that sprayed shrapnel into the crowd at the finish line last Monday, killing three people and wounding more than 180.
The criminal complaint containing the charges shed no light on the motive for the attack.
Tsarnaev was listed in serious but stable condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, unable to speak because of a gunshot wound to the throat. His brother, Tamerlan, 26, died last week in a fierce gunbattle with police.
"Although our investigation is ongoing, today's charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston and for our country," Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement.
The charges carry the death penalty or a prison sentence of up to life.
"He has what's coming to him," a wounded Kaitlynn Cates said from her hospital room. She was at the finish line when the first blast knocked her off her feet, and she suffered an injury to her lower leg.
In outlining the evidence against him in court papers, the FBI said Tsarnaev was seen on surveillance cameras putting a knapsack down on the ground near the site of the second blast and then manipulating a cellphone and lifting it to his ear.
Seconds later, the first explosion went off about a block down the street and spread fear and confusion through the crowd. But Tsarnaev - unlike nearly everyone around him - looked calm and quickly walked away, the FBI said.
Just 10 seconds or so later, the second blast occurred where he had left the knapsack, the FBI said.
The FBI did not make it clear whether authorities believe he used his cellphone to detonate one or both of the bombs or whether he was talking to someone.
The court papers also said that during the long night of crime Thursday and Friday that led to the older brother's death and the younger one's capture, one of the Tsarnaev brothers told a carjacking victim: "Did you hear about the Boston explosion? I did that."
The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who have lived in the U.S. for about a decade. Investigators are focusing on a trip the older brother made last year to Chechnya and Dagestan, in a region of Russia that has become a hotbed of separatist politics and Islamic extremism.
Tsarnaev was charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property, resulting in death. He is also likely to face state charges in connection with the shooting death of an MIT police officer.
The Obama administration said it had no choice but to prosecute Tsarnaev in the federal court system. Some politicians had suggested he be tried as an enemy combatant in front of a military tribunal, where defendants are denied some of the usual U.S. constitutional protections.
But Tsarnaev is a naturalized U.S. citizen, and under U.S. law, American citizens cannot be tried by military tribunals, White House spokesman Jay Carney said. Carney said that since 9/11, the federal court system has been used to convict and imprison hundreds of terrorists.
In its criminal complaint, the FBI said it searched Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth on Sunday and found BBs as well as a white hat and dark jacket that look like those worn by one of one of the suspected bombers in the surveillance photos the FBI released a few days after the attack.
Seven days after the bombings, meanwhile, Boston was bustling Monday, with runners hitting the pavement, children walking to school and enough cars clogging the streets to make the morning commute feel almost back to normal.
Residents paused in the afternoon to observe a moment of silence at 2:50 p.m., the time of the first blast. Church bells tolled across the city and state in tribute to the victims.
Standing on the steps of the state Capitol, Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick bowed his head and said after the moment of silence: "God bless the people of Massachusetts. Boston Strong."
On Boylston Street, where the bombing took place, the silence was broken when a Boston police officer pumped his fists in the air and the crowd erupted in applause. The crowd then quietly sang "God Bless America."
Also, hundreds of family and friends packed a church in Medford for the funeral of bombing victim Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker. A memorial service was scheduled for Monday night at Boston University for 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China.
Fifty-one victims remained hospitalized Monday, three of them in critical condition.
At the Snowden International School on Newbury Street, a high school set just a block from the bombing site, jittery parents dropped off children as teachers - some of whom had run in the race - greeted each other with hugs.
Carlotta Martin of Boston said that leaving her kids at school has been the hardest part of getting back to normal.
"We're right in the middle of things," Martin said outside the school as her children, 17-year-old twins and a 15-year-old, walked in, glancing at the police barricades a few yards from the school's front door.
"I'm nervous. Hopefully, this stuff is over," she continued. "I told my daughter to text me so I know everything's OK."
Tsarnaev was captured Friday night after an intense all-day manhunt that brought the Boston area to a near-standstill. He was cornered and seized, wounded and bloody, after he was discovered hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a Watertown backyard.
He had apparent gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs and hand, the FBI said in court papers.
Sen. Dan Coats of Indiana, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Sunday that Tsarnaev's throat wound raised questions about when he will be able to talk again, if ever. It was not clear whether the wound was inflicted by police or was self-inflicted.
The wound "doesn't mean he can't communicate, but right now I think he's in a condition where we can't get any information from him at all," Coats told ABC's "This Week."
Meanwhile, investigators in the Boston suburb of Waltham are looking into whether there are links between Tamerlan Tsarnaev and an unsolved 2011 slaying. Tsarnaev was a friend of one of three men found dead in an apartment with their necks slit and their bodies reportedly covered with marijuana.
CAPTURED! 2nd Boston bombing suspect in custody
WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) — A 19-year-old college student wanted in the Boston Marathon bombings was taken into custody Friday evening after a manhunt that left the city virtually paralyzed and his older brother and accomplice dead. He was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital in serious condition.
Police announced via Twitter that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in custody. They later wrote, "CAPTURED!!! The hunt is over. The search is done. The terror is over. And justice has won. Suspect in custody."
Tsarnaev's brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan, was killed Friday in a furious attempt to escape police.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had been holed up in a boat in a Watertown neighborhood. Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said the owner of the boat noticed his tarp on the boat was torn, looked inside, and saw a bloodied person and backed away and called the Watertown police department.
The crowd gathered near the scene let out a cheer when spectators saw officers clapping.
"Everyone wants him alive," said Kathleen Paolillo, a 27-year-old teacher who lives in Watertown.
Boston Mayor Tom Menino tweeted "We got him," along with a photo of the police commissioner speaking to him. Watertown residents poured out of their homes and lined the streets to cheer police vehicles as they rolled away from the scene.
During a long night of violence Thursday into Friday, the brothers killed an MIT police officer, severely wounded another lawman and hurled explosives at police in a car chase and gun battle, authorities said.
The suspects were identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, ethnic Chechen brothers who had lived in Dagestan, which neighbors Chechnya in southern Russia. They had been in the U.S. for about a decade, an uncle said, and were believed to be living in Cambridge, Mass.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No. 1 and was seen in surveillance footage of the marathon in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said. His younger brother, who had been dubbed Suspect No. 2 and was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday's deadly bombing — escaped and was on the run.
Their uncle in Maryland, Ruslan Tsarni, pleaded on live television: "Dzhokhar, if you are alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness."
Authorities in Boston suspended all mass transit and warned close to 1 million people in the entire city and some of its suburbs to stay indoors as the hunt for Suspect No. 2 went on. Businesses were asked not to open. People waiting at bus and subway stops were told to go home. The Red Sox and Bruins postponed their games.
From Watertown to Cambridge, police SWAT teams, sharpshooters and FBI agents surrounded various buildings as police helicopters buzzed overhead and armored vehicles rumbled through the streets. Authorities also searched trains.
"We believe this man to be a terrorist," said Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis. "We believe this to be a man who's come here to kill people."
The bombings on Monday killed three people and wounded more than 180 others, tearing off limbs in a spray of shrapnel and instantly raising the specter of another terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Chechnya was the scene of two wars between Russian forces and separatists since 1994, in which tens of thousands were killed in heavy Russian bombing. That spawned an Islamic insurgency that has carried out deadly bombings in Russia and the region, although not in the West.
Investigators in the Boston case have shed no light on the motive for the bombing and have said it is unclear whether it was the work of domestic or international terrorists or someone else entirely with an unknown agenda.
The endgame — at least for Suspect No. 1 — came just hours after the FBI released photos and video of the two young men at the marathon's finish line and appealed to the public for help in identifying and capturing them.
State Police spokesman Dave Procopio said police realized they were dealing with the bombing suspects based on what the two men told a carjacking victim during their getaway attempt overnight.
The stories of 2 brothers suspected in Boston Marathon bombing
BOSTON (AP) —In May of 2011, Dzhokhar A. then a senior at a prestigious high school, was awarded a $2,500 scholarship from the city of Cambridge, Mass., to pursue higher education. Now, Tsarnaev is on the run, described as "armed and dangerous" and suspected of the Boston Marathon bombing.
Two brothers, one now dead, one alive and at large. After hours of only grainy images of two men in baseball caps to go on, a portrait gradually started emerging Friday of the men suspected in the attack.
Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother, Tamerlan, who was killed during a violent night in Cambridge, had been living together on Norfolk Street in Cambridge. An uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., told The Associated Press that the men lived together near Boston and have been in the United States for about a decade. They came from the Russian region near Chechnya, which has been plagued by an Islamic insurgency stemming from separatist wars.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's page on the Russian social networking site Vkontakte says he attended Cambridge Rindge and Latin School, graduating in 2011, the year he won the scholarship, which was celebrated with a reception at City Hall, according to a news release issued at the time. Before moving to the United States, he attended School No. 1 in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim republic in Russia's North Caucasus that has become an epicenter of the Islamic insurgency that spilled over from Chechnya. On the site, he describes himself as speaking Chechen as well as English and Russian. His world view is described as "Islam" and he says his personal goal is "career and money."
Tsarnaev appeared in the video released by authorities on Thursday, identified as Suspect Number 2, striding down a sidewalk, unnoticed by spectators who were absorbed in the race. He followed Tamerlan by about 10 feet. He wore what appeared to be a gray hoodie under a dark jacket and pants, and a white baseball cap facing backward and pulled down haphazardly.
Tamerlan was stockier, in khaki pants, a light T-shirt, and a dark jacket. The brim of his baseball cap faced forward, and he may have been wearing sunglasses.
According to the website spotcrime.com, Tamerlan was arrested for domestic violence in July 2009, after assaulting his girlfriend.
He was an amateur boxer, listed as a competitor in a National Golden Gloves competition in 2009.
___
UPDATE: Police: MIT suspect tied to Boston marathon bomb
WATERTOWN, Mass. (AP) - Police say one of two suspects in the shooting of an MIT police officer is dead and a massive manhunt is underway for another, who is tied to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Shortly after the MIT officer was shot Thursday night, police got a report of a carjacking in Cambridge, just outside Boston.
Police say of the at-large suspect, "We believe this to be a terrorist."
The FBI is investigating whether the fatal shooting of a campus police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and gunfire and explosions in a nearby town are related to the Boston Marathon bombings.
A Massachusetts State Police spokesman said early Friday that one person suspected in the gunfire and explosions has been accounted for and one is at large.
The FBI said it is working with local authorities to determine what happened.
The MIT shooting on the Cambridge campus Thursday night was followed by reports of violence in nearby Watertown, about 10 miles west of Boston.
State police spokesman David Procopio said there is a "strong possibility" the incidents are related.
The MIT officer had been responding to report of a disturbance Thursday night when he was shot multiple times, according to a statement from the Middlesex district attorney's office and Cambridge police. It said there were no other victims.
In Watertown, witnesses reported hearing multiple gunshots and explosions at about 1 a.m. Friday. Dozens of police officers and FBI agents were in the neighborhood and a helicopter circled overhead.
State police spokesman David Procopio said, "The incident in Watertown did involve what we believe to be explosive devices possibly, potentially, being used against the police officers."
Boston cab driver Imran Sais said he was standing on a street corner at a police barricade across from a diner when he heard an explosion.
"I heard a loud boom and then a rapid succession of pop, pop, pop," he said. "It sounded like automatic weapons. And then I heard the second explosion."
He said he could smell something burning and advanced to check it out but area residents at their windows yelled at him, "Hey, it's gunfire! Don't go that way!"
MIT said right after the 10:30 p.m. shooting that police were sweeping the campus in Cambridge and urged people to remain indoors. They urged people urged to stay away from the Stata Building, a mixed-use building with faculty offices, classrooms and a common area.
Hours later, MIT, which has about 11,000 students, said the campus was clear but the shooter was still on the loose.
UPDATE: FBI releases new image showing Boston bombing suspects together
The FBI has released images of two suspects connected to the Boston Marathon Bombing.
Officials say the suspects are armed and dangerous and no one should approach them or try to apprehend them.
The FBI says no piece of information is too small.
More FBI pictures, including higher quality photos can be found here.
Conflicting reports on progress in Boston Bombing case
BOSTON -- ABC News -- Authorities are close to identifying a suspect in the deadly Boston Marathon bombing, an official in Boston told ABC News.
ABC News' Boston affiliate, WCVB, reported a source had said a suspect has already been identified and an arrest is imminent. Surveillance video taken from cameras at a Lord & Taylor along the marathon route helped identify the suspect, WCVB said.
A pair of blasts erupted Monday afternoon near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 170 others.
Authorities said they have been analyzing thousands of photos of the event and tracking down as many leads since the bombing. Tuesday ABC News reported part of a pressure cooker bomb had been recovered from the scene with wires, shrapnel and a circuit board. That evidence has been sent to the FBI lap in Quantico, Virginia for analysis, officials said.
Third Boston victim identified by Chinese state-run newspaper
BEIJING (AP) — A state-run Chinese newspaper says the third person killed in the Boston Marathon bombings is a Chinese graduate student at Boston University originally from China's northeastern city of Shenyang.
The Shenyang Evening News reported Wednesday on its official Twitter-like microblog account that the victim is named Lu Lingzi. An editor at the newspaper says that Lu's father confirmed his daughter's death when reporters visited the family home.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry and Consulate General in New York are not releasing the victim's name at the request of the family. But on Tuesday, Boston media quoted a Chinese Consulate General official as saying Chinese national Lu Lingzi was missing in the wake of the bombings that killed three and wounded more than 170 people.
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