New arrests in Boston bombings
May 1, 2013
According to documents filed in a US federal court Wednesday, two of the suspects have been charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice by throwing away a backpack and a laptop computer belonging to their classmate Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the younger of the two brothers thought to have carried out the bombings.
The two suspects, Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, are citizens of Kazakhstan who had earlier Wednesday been held by US immigration officials on suspicion of violating terms of their student visas, according to officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
The third person taken into custody, US citizen Robel Phillipos, has been charged with making false statements to investigators following the April 15 attack, according to court documents.
In their initial court appearance on Wednesday none of the three entered a plea. They are not accused of prior knowledge of the Boston bombings.
All three men studied at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with the youngest bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Dzhokhar, 19, was captured alive and is currently being held in a prison medical center. He has been charged with carrying out the April 15 bombings. If convicted in a federal court, he could receive the death penalty.
His older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died in a gunfight with police three days after the bombing.
The ethnic-Chechen brothers moved to the US in 2003.
hc, ccp/mz (Reuters, AFP, AP, dpa)