US arrests 3 more suspects in Boston bombing

Two of the three suspects are students, including one American.

Boston city officials said the three men were arrested on the morning of May 2 (Vietnam time) on charges of obstructing an investigation and making false statements. Two of them, Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, are both Kazakh nationals, while the third, Robel Phillipos, is an American citizen.

According to investigators, the suspects were accused of destroying evidence by dumping suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s backpack containing fireworks and his laptop in a trash dump. An investigator said that after the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) released photos of the Tsarnaev brothers, Dzhokhar contacted all three and asked them to destroy the evidence. Not only did Phillipos help Dzhokhar destroy the evidence, he also lied to some of the FBI’s questions.

According to AP sources, the three suspects are friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (Photo: AP)

Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev, who were photographed with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in New York's Times Square, were arrested last month on charges of violating student visas. One of the reasons that caught the attention of police was that Kadyrbayev and suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev changed their Facebook backgrounds within 15 minutes of each other early on April 19, while the Tsarnaev brothers were still on the run.

According to sources from the investigation agency, Dzhokhar accessed Facebook through a wifi device and changed the background to black and white while Kadyrbayev changed the background in use to another photo.

If convicted, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov face up to five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, while Phillipos faces up to eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

After the bombing that killed 3 people and injured nearly 180 others in Boston, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested while his brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police. According to a poll by the Washington Post and ABC News, 70% of Americans support the death penalty for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev./.

According to VOV - DT