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| FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. A court official says Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the bombings, is facing federal charges and has made an initial court appearance in his hospital room, Monday, April 22, 2013. |
Tsarnaev, 19, was charged in his hospital room, where he was in serious condition with a gunshot wound to the throat and other injuries suffered during his attempted getaway.
His older brother, Tamerlan, 26, died Friday after a fierce gunbattle with police.BOSTON (AP) -- The two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston Marathon appear to have been motivated by a radical brand of Islam but do not seem connected to any Muslim terrorist groups, U.S. officials said Monday after interrogating and charging Dzhokhar Tsarnaev with crimes that could bring the death penalty.
The Massachusetts college student was charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. He was accused of joining with his brother in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 200 a week ago.
The brothers, ethnic Chechens from Russia who had been living in the U.S. for about a decade, practiced Islam.
Two
U.S. officials said preliminary evidence from the younger man's
interrogation suggests the brothers were motivated by religious
extremism but were apparently not involved with Islamic terrorist
organizations.
Dzhokhar communicated with his
interrogators in writing, precluding the type of back-and-forth
exchanges often crucial to establishing key facts, said the officials,
who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to
discuss the investigation publicly.
They
cautioned that they were still trying to verify what they were told by
Tsarnaev and were looking at such things as his telephone and online
communications and his associations with others.
In
the criminal complaint outlining the allegations, investigators said
Tsarnaev and his brother each placed a knapsack containing a bomb in the
crowd near the finish line of the 26.2-mile race.
The
FBI said surveillance-camera footage showed Dzhokhar manipulating his
cellphone and lifting it to his ear just instants before the two blasts.
After
the first blast, a block away from Dzhokhar, "virtually every head
turns to the east ... and stares in that direction in apparent
bewilderment and alarm," the complaint says. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev,
"virtually alone of the individuals in front of the restaurant, appears
calm."
He then quickly walked away, leaving a
knapsack on the ground; about 10 seconds later, a bomb blew up at the
spot where he had been standing, the FBI said.
The
FBI did not say whether he was using his cellphone to detonate one or
both of the bombs or whether he was talking to someone.
The criminal complaint shed no light on the motive for the attack.
The
Obama administration said it had no choice but to prosecute Dzhokhar
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 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.
Also
on Monday, Kazakhstan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs issued a statement
saying two foreign nationals arrested Saturday in the Boston area on
immigration violations are from Kazakhstan and may have known the two
Marathon bombing suspects.
The foreign
ministry said U.S. authorities came across them while searching for
"possible links and contacts" to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Their names have not
been released.
Shortly after the charges
against Tsarnaev were unveiled, Boston-area residents and many of their
well-wishers - including President Barack Obama at the White House -
observed a moment of silence at 2:49 p.m. - the moment a week earlier
when the bombs exploded.
Across Massachusetts, the silence was broken by the tolling of church bells.
"God bless the people of Massachusetts," said Gov. Deval Patrick at a ceremony outside the Statehouse. "Boston Strong."
Also
Monday, the governor and Roman Catholic Cardinal Sean O'Malley were
among the mourners at St. Joseph Church at the first funeral for one of
the victims, Krystle Campbell. The 29-year-old restaurant manager had
gone to watch a friend finish the race.
"She
was always there for people. As long as Krystle was around, you were
OK," said Marishi Charles, who attended the Mass. "These were the words
her family wanted you to remember."
Amid a
swirl of emotions in Boston, there was cause for some celebration:
Doctors announced that everyone injured in the blasts who made it to a
hospital alive now seems likely to survive.
That
includes several people who arrived with legs attached by just a little
skin, a 3-year-old boy with a head wound and bleeding on the brain, and
a little girl riddled with nails.
"All I feel
is joy," said Dr. George Velmahos, chief of trauma surgery at
Massachusetts General Hospital, referring to his hospital's 31 blast
patients. "Whoever came in alive stayed alive."
As
of Monday, 51 people remained hospitalized, three of them in critical
condition. At least 14 people lost all or part of a limb; three of them
lost more than one.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had
gunshot wounds to the head, neck, legs and hands when he was captured
hiding out in a boat in a backyard in the Boston suburb of Watertown,
authorities said.
A probable cause hearing -
at which prosecutors will spell out the basics of their case - was set
for May 30. According to a clerk's notes of Monday's proceedings in the
hospital, U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne
Bowler indicated she was
satisfied that Tsarnaev was "alert and able to respond to the charges."
Tsarnaev
did not speak during the proceeding, except to answer "no" when he was
asked if he could afford his own lawyer, according to the notes. He
nodded when asked if he was able to answer some questions and whether he
understood his rights as explained to him by the judge.
Federal Public Defender Miriam Conrad, whose office has been assigned to represent Tsarnaev, declined to comment.
Tsarnaev
could also face state charges in the slaying of a Massachusetts
Institute of Technology police officer, who was shot in his cruiser
Thursday night on the MIT campus in Cambridge.
News
of the criminal charges pleased some of the people gathered at a
makeshift memorial along the police barricades on Boylston Street, where
the attack took place.
Amy McPate a
Massachusetts native now living in Maine, said she usually opposes the
death penalty, but thinks it should apply in this case.
"They were more than murderers. They're terrorists. They terrorized the city," she said. "The nation has been terrorized."
Kaitlynn Cates of Everett, who suffered a leg injury in the bombing, said from her hospital room: "He has what's coming to him."
Among the details in the FBI affidavit:
-
One of the brothers - it wasn't clear which one - told a carjacking
victim during their getaway attempt, "Did you hear about the Boston
explosion? I did that."
-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 the suspected
bombers in the surveillance photos the FBI released a few days after the
attack.
