Obstruction trial opens for friend of accused Boston Marathon bomber

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/07/obstruction-trial-friend-boston-marathon-bomber

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A friend of the accused Boston Marathon bomber goes on trial on Monday, charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy.

Azamat Tazhayakov, a 20-year-old Kazakh exchange student, will be the first of three friends of the suspected bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, to stand trial.

Prosecutors contend that Tazhayakov removed a laptop and backpack computer from the suspect's dorm room as investigators were searching for the person behind the deadly blasts which struck crowds in April 2013.

Authorities said those actions delayed the arrest of Tsarnaev, who is charged with killing three people in the bomb attack and shooting dead a police officer at around the time the three friends were in his room at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

A key issue in the trial will be whether statements Tazhayakov made to the FBI after he was taken from his New Bedford, Massachusetts, apartment by armed agents and transported in handcuffs to a police barracks were voluntary.

Another Kazakh exchange student, Dias Kadyrbayev, who faces similar charges and is awaiting trial later this year, told the court in a pretrial hearing he did not believe he was free to go during the interrogation, conducted on 19 April 2013 and into the following morning.

The two were arrested on 20 April 2013, five days after the bombing, on immigration violations. They have been in federal custody since.

District judge Douglas Woodlock warned attorneys during a pretrial hearing that he would declare a mistrial if he found that Tazhayakov's statements at the time, made without a lawyer present and before he was informed of his right against self-incrimination, were not voluntary.

Tazhayakov could face 25 years in prison if convicted.

Prosecutors said Tazhayakov, Kadyrbayev and a third friend, Robel Phillipos of Cambridge, Massachusetts, recognised Tsarnaev as one of the suspects in photos the FBI released after the blasts, which also injured 264 people and stand as the largest mass-casualty attack on US soil since 11 September 2001.

They contacted Tsarnaev, who asked them to go to his dorm room and take anything they wanted. Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, attempted to escape Boston that night, Tamerlan dying after a gun battle with police. Tsarnaev is awaiting trial on charges that carry the threat of execution if he is convicted.

Phillipos faces the lesser charge of lying to investigators.