BOSTON (AP) – A friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was a naive college kid who was prosecuted because he was a “friend of the bomber,” a defense lawyer said Wednesday, while prosecutors told a jury the man was an active participant in a plan to protect Tsarnaev by removing altered fireworks and other items from his dorm room.
The descriptions came during closing arguments in the first trial stemming from the 2013 bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 260. Azamat Tazhayakov, 20, is charged with obstruction of justice and conspiracy.
Assistant U.S. Attorney John Capin said Tazhayakov knew Tsarnaev was a bombing suspect after he and other friends saw photos and video of Tsarnaev released by the FBI on April 18, 2013.
Hours later, Capin said, Tazhayakov and two other friends, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos, went to Tsarnaev’s dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth after Tsarnaev sent Kadyrbayev a text message telling them they could go to his room and “take what’s there.”
Capin said Tazhayakov became “scared” when he saw fireworks that had been emptied of gunpowder in Tsarnaev’s backpack, because Tsarnaev had told him and other friends weeks before the marathon bombings that gunpowder is one of the ingredients needed to make a bomb. Capin said that when Kadyrbayev found a jar of Vaseline, he told Tazhayakov, “This is what he uses to make bombs.” The Vaseline was later found in Tsarnaev’s backpack when agents recovered it in a landfill.