Bomb suspect's buddies covered for him, feds say

 

By Matt Smith, CNN 

May 2, 2013 -- Updated 0933 GMT (1733 HKT)

(CNN) -- A laptop, some empty fireworks and a jar of Vaseline landed three friends of Boston Marathon bomb suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in jail Wednesday, charged with trying to throw investigators off their buddy's trail.

Those are the items federal prosecutors say Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos took from Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in the hours after the FBI released photos of Tsarnaev and his brother Tamerlan, the suspects in the marathon bombings. According to FBI affidavits, they quickly recognized their friend from the pictures.

When Kadyrbayev texted his friend to tell him "he looked like the suspect on television," Tsarnaev texted back "lol" and added, "come to my room and take whatever you want," the affidavit states. Phillipos, Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev went to the room, where Kadyrbayev noticed a backpack containing fireworks that had been "opened and emptied of powder," according to the affidavit.

"Kadyrbayev knew when he saw the empty fireworks that Tsarnaev was involved in the marathon bombing," the affidavit states.

 

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All three are accused of removing items from Tsarnaev's dorm room after the April 15 bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 260. According to the affidavit, they left with the backpack, the Vaseline -- which Tazhayakov believed could be used to make bombs -- and Tsarnaev's laptop.

Read the criminal complaint

By the time they got back to the apartment in New Bedford that Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev shared, the Tsarnaev brothers had been named as bomb suspects, and the three friends "started to freak out," Phillipos recounted after what the affidavit stated had been four previous interviews.

"According to Kadyrbayev, they collectively decided to throw the backpack and fireworks into the trash because they did not want Tsarnaev to get into trouble," the affidavit states.

Investigators found the pack, fireworks and Vaseline in a landfill last week after a two-day search. The complaint doesn't state what happened to the laptop.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov, both from Kazakhstan, were already in federal custody on immigration charges. They're charged with obstruction of justice, while Phillipos, a U.S. citizen, is charged with lying to federal agents probing the bombing.

Probe stretches from Boston to Russia 

Wednesday's developments come after more than two weeks of intensive investigation that has stretched from Boston to the restive Russian republic of Dagestan, where the Tsarnaev brothers' parents now live.

Federal officials say investigators remain very interested in talking with Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, about what she may have known about her husband's travel and associations, as well as about any encounters she may have had with the two suspects in the aftermath of the attack.

Latest on the investigation

Russell told investigators that she spoke to her husband after his picture appeared on national television as a suspect, two sources familiar with the investigation told CNN on Wednesday. The nature of the conversation remains under investigation, but the sources said there was some concern that Russell spoke with her husband but did not call authorities who were still seeking to identify the men in the photos.

Russell's lawyers had no immediate comment on that report. On Tuesday, attorney Amato DeLuca said Russell "will continue to meet with law enforcement, as she has done for many hours over the past week, and provide as much assistance to the investigation as she can."

Officials say Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators his brother was the mastermind of the attack. Investigators are looking into whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev was influenced toward radical Islam during a six-month visit in 2012 to Dagestan, a region where Russian forces are battling jihadist guerrillas.

 

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The elder Tsarnaev's body remained unclaimed in a state medical examiner's morgue Wednesday. His wife wants his family to claim the body, DeLuca said Tuesday.

Lawyers say Dzhokhar's friends cooperated

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's friends made their first appearance before a judge Wednesday afternoon, when they were read the charges against them and informed of their rights.

All three started at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth in 2011, along with Tsarnaev. Only Tazhayakov is still enrolled, and he's been suspended "pending the outcome of the case," university spokesman Rob Lamontagne said.

They waived bail requests until a later court date. At one point, Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler admonished Phillipos, "I suggest you pay attention to me, rather than looking down."

Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev appear in a photograph with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev taken in New York's Times Square during an earlier visit. They were taken into custody last month on charges that they had violated the terms of their student visas, Kadyrbayev attorney Stahl said last week.

All three were questioned at length on April 19, when the manhunt for Tsarnaev was in full swing. Tsarnaev's brother Tamerlan had been killed in a gun battle with police early that morning, while Tsarnaev was captured alive but badly wounded that night. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being treated for gunshot wounds at a federal Bureau of Prisons medical center in Devens, Massachusetts.

About a month before the marathon attack, Tsarnaev had told Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov "that he knew how to make a bomb," according to an FBI affidavit recounting the charges. Kadyrbayev told investigators that Tsarnaev "appeared to have given himself a short haircut" two days after the bombings.

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Kadyrbayev's lawyer Robert Stahl said his client "did not have anything to do" with the bombing and disputed charges that he tried to obstruct the investigation. And Harlan Protass, who represents Tazhayakov, said his client "has cooperated fully with the authorities and looks forward to the truth coming out in this case."

On Wednesday, he said Kadyrbayev was accused of a "technical violation" of a student visa "for not regularly attending classes." Federal law enforcement sources said at the time that the Kazakh students were being detained "in an abundance of caution" because authorities wanted detailed information on the Tsarnaevs' movements in the weeks and days before the attack.

Phillipos faces up to eight years in prison if convicted, along with a $250,000 fine; the charges against Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov carry sentences of up to five years and $250,000 in fines.

Alan Dershowitz, a prominent defense attorney and Harvard law professor, called the obstruction charge "weak," suggesting it was meant to pressure the suspects into providing more information on Tsarnaev.

"If that's the best the feds have now, then they're just squeezing," Dershowitz told CNN. "It doesn't sound like they have very much new here."

Early discussion of avoiding the death penalty

One of the reasons Kadyrbayev drew investigators' attention was because of changes to his Facebook page, a source briefed on the Boston probe said. Kadyrbayev and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev changed their profile photos within 15 minutes of each other in the pre-dawn hours of April 19, while the Tsarnaevs were on the run, the source said.

Tsarnaev, who appears to have had access to a wireless device at that time, changed his to a black-and-white photo, while Kadyrbayev changed his photo to one of him wearing an Iron Man mask, the source said.

Global labor protests mark May Day

David Agren, Special for USA TODAY
1:56 a.m. EDT May 2, 2013

CHILPANCINGO, Mexico — Protesters armed with pipes, spray paint and slingshots marched through this state capital south of Mexico City, vandalizing public buildings to express opposition to teacher competency exams and the revoking of the right to sell their jobs to the highest bidder.

The Mexico teachers protest was among many demonstrations worldwide for May Day, a day when labor unions traditionally head to the streets to demand more pay and benefits and job protections.
Unions in Greece, where government jobs have been cut because of overspending of taxpayer money, held a strike that brought ferry and train services to a halt.
"We are here to send a message to … those in power in Europe, that we will continue our struggle against unfair, open-ended policies that are destroying millions of jobs," said Kostas Tsikrikas, leader of Greek public sector labor union ADEDY.
More than 100,000 Spaniards angry at budget cuts and higher taxes imposed to solve a nationwide budget deficit took to the streets in 80 cities. Under banners reading "Fight for your rights," union leaders called on the government to reverse its austerity drive.
May Day events in Turkey turned violent when some demonstrators threw stones and gasoline bombs at police. Security forces used water cannon and tear gas to prevent crowds from accessing Taksim Square.
But it was Mexico, the protests were criticized by residents who accuse teachers of focusing more on leftist politics than helping change a school system that fails to educate children adequately.
"There's Marxism in all of the teaching, right from the start," teacher Arturo Castaño says of his alma mater, the Escuela Normal Rural Raúl Isidro Burgos, which takes pride in having produced teachers that have gone on to participate in guerrilla movements.
President Enrique Peña Nieto introduced measures — now enacted — shortly after taking office Dec. 1, to improve teaching in a school system whose students receive some of the lowest scores on standardized exams.
Many residents in Chilpancingo expressed frustration with the teachers, saying they've had to make other arrangements for their children or enroll them in private schools.
"There are some good public school teachers, but a lot of bad ones that don't have the proper training," Esther Cruz, a stationary shop employee and mother of three, says.
Teachers in this state, which spreads south of Mexico City across marginalized mountainous regions, argue that the changes stealthily "privatize" education by imposing fees on poor parents. They insist the exam process is a trick to fire teachers and them hire them back on hourly salaries without full benefits.
"This has nothing to do with education. it's an administrative measure," 30-year veteran teacher Román López, says of the changes. "We have dilapidated school infrastructure (in Guerrero) and the education reform does nothing to fix that."
The former head of the 1.4 million member National Education Workers Union, Elba Esther Gordillo, has been accused of embezzling approximately $200 million in union money spent in part on a luxury home in Coronado, Calif., and shopping sprees at Neiman Marcus.
Teachers in Guerrero have forced the local governor, Ángel Aguierre, to back down and propose a different version of an education reform to be applied locally.
They've kept up the pressure with protests, which included burning the headquarters of four political parties, storming the state congress, surrounding stores such as Wal-Mart and blocking the busy Acapulco-Mexico City highway. Teachers encouraged their students to join in the acts.
Castaño says the leftist curriculum in some regions is a way of addressing the difficulties of rural Mexico, where poverty is pervasive and many work for low wages picking sugar cane and tomatoes in northern states. Students arrive at school hungry and the infrastructure is so lacking that kids bring buckets to school for fetching water from a nearby creek for cleaning and drinking.
Parents pitch in money, Castaño says, to pay the school's monthly electricity bill.
Elsewhere, in Indonesia, tens of thousands of workers rallied for higher pay and other demands. Some carried banners reading: "Sentence corruptors to death and seize their properties" to protest a proposal for the government to slash fuel subsidies that have kept the country's pump prices among the cheapest in the region.
In the Philippines, 8,000 workers marched in Manila to demand more pay and regular jobs instead of contractual work. Some rallied outside the U.S. Embassy, torching a wooden painting stamped with the words "low wages" and "union busting" that depicted Philippine President Benigno Aquino III as a lackey of President Obama.
More than 10,000 Taiwanese protested a government plan to cut pension payouts to solve worsening fiscal problems. In Cambodia, more than 5,000 garment workers marched in Phnom Penh, demanding better working conditions and a salary increase.
In Havana, tens of thousands of Cubans joined the communist nation's traditional May Day march in the Plaza of the Revolution. This year's event was dedicated to Cuba's ally, the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez.