Three arrested for allegedly helping suspect after Boston bombings

The Washington Post - 1 May 2013

HO/AFP/GETTY IMAGES - Fireworks tubes found in a backpack that was allegedly disposed of by friends of Boston Marathon suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

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By Sari Horwitz, Updated: Wednesday, May 1, 3:10 PM

Three friends of one of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were charged Wednesday with interfering with the investigation after the attack.

The three were identified as friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, who has been charged with carrying out the bombings along with his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26. The younger brother was a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, the same school attended by the three people charged with helping him after the bombings, according to authorities.

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Three more suspects have been taken into custody in the marathon bombings, city police said Wednesday. The police department made the announcement in a tweet Wednesday morning, saying more details would follow.

The friends were identified in a federal complaint as Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both 19-year-old students from Kazahkstan, and Robel Phillipos, also 19. The two Kazakh students were accused of “knowingly destroying, concealing, and covering up” a laptop computer and a backpack containing fireworks that belonged to Tsarnaev. Phillipos was charged with lying to federal investigators.

Attorneys for Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev did not immediately reply to messages requesting comment. It was unclear whether Phillipos had a lawyer.

The Boston Police Department first announced the arrests on Wednesday. “First and foremost, there is no threat to public safety,” the department said in a statement.

The Tsarnaev brothers were at large for four days after the April 15 bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 250. The elder brother was killed in a shootout with police in the early morning hours of April 19, and the younger brother was captured that evening. He faces charges that potentially carry the death penalty.

The two Kazakhs have been in the United States on student visas and attended the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth along with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Phillipos. The two Kazakhs were taken into custody April 20 on charges of violating their visas.

A detailed affidavit by FBI agent Scott P. Cieplik that accompanied the criminal complaint described how the friends admitted taking the material from Tsarnaev’s dorm room after seeing news reports in which they recognized their friend as one of the bombing suspects.

According to the affidavit, shortly after the FBI released photographs and video of the two bombing suspects late on the afternoon of April 19, the three friends went to Tsarnaev’s room at UMass-Dartmouth. While they were there, Tsarnaev sent a text message to Kadyrbayev saying, “I’m about to leave if you need something in my room take it.”

They noticed a backpack containing fireworks that had been opened and emptied of explosive powder. “Kadyrbayev knew when he saw the empty fireworks that Tsarnaev was involved in the marathon bombing,” said Cieplik.

Kadyrbayev later told the FBI that he removed the fireworks “in order to help his friend,” and that he also took Tsarnaev’s computer and a jar of Vaseline that he thought might have been used to make bombs, according to the complaint. All three later decided to throw the backpack and computer into a dumpster near the apartment shared by Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov in New Bedford, Mass., according to the complaint. The affidavit said that Kadyrbayev put the material into the dumpster.

All three men were later interviewed by the FBI and appear from the affidavit to have eventually cooperated. Phillipos, however, was charged with lying because he initially denied that they went to Tsarnaev’s dorm room.

The arrests were part of an ongoing investigation by Boston law enforcement and the FBI into the bombings. Federal law enforcement officials have said in recent days that they were focused on several “persons of interest” in the United States and Russia.

On the evening of April 19, before police found Dzhokhar Tsarnaev hiding in a boat in a backyard in Watertown, Mass., dozens of heavily armed officers descended on the U-Mass-Dartmouth campus and a large apartment complex in a quiet New Bedford neighborhood about four miles away.

Neighbors described seeing armored trucks arrive and armed men dressed in camouflage crawl through the complex’s courtyard, as other officials used a bullhorn to tell those inside a first-floor apartment: “Come out! We won’t hurt you!”

The FBI took three college-aged individuals with connections to Tsarnaev into custody that night at the apartment complex. All three were released from police custody about 12 hours later, according to their next-door neighbor, an elderly woman who spoke with them on the morning of April 20 and did not want her name used by the news media. Within 24 hours, two men were led back out of the apartment in handcuffs by federal immigration and homeland security officials. Also at the apartment that day were FBI agents and representatives from the Kazakhstan Consulate.

The neighbor recalled the two by their first names, Dias and Azamat, and said Dias had a girlfriend who attends college in Boston and frequently visited.

The neighbor said she never saw Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at the apartment, but she said law enforcement officials mentioned that he might have shared a cellphone plan with one of the residents. She also said that officers asked her and others a lot of questions about a black BMW parked near the apartment with a fake license plate on the front featuring the college’s name and mascot, plus “Terrorista #1.”

“Great neighbors. Perfectly nice. Sweet. Soft. Real nice. Always talked to me,” said the woman. “They are peaches.”