BOSTON (AP) — A college friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (joh-HAHR’ tsahr-NEYE’-ehv) has been convicted of impeding the investigation into the attack.
Azamat Tazhayakov (AZ’-maht tuh-ZAY’-uh-kahv) was found guilty Monday of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Prosecutors say he agreed with a friend who removed Tsarnaev’s backpack from his dorm room several days after the 2013 bombing. The backpack contained altered fireworks.
Tazhayakov’s lawyers argued that the other friend removed the items from the dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and then threw them away.
Prosecutors told the jury that both men shared in the decision to get rid of the items to protect Tsarnaev. The friend, Dias Kadyrbayev (DY’-us kah-dur-BY’-ehv), faces a separate trial in September.
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He “agreed” with a friend who removed the backpack? Can someone explain how this could possibly be a crime?
The problem is that you’re trusting a journalist to accurately relate legal matters. The charge is that the two conspired to obstruct justice. It takes more than just agreement. There has to be an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy.
I feel bad for them. They clearly intended to obstruct justice, as the crime is defined, but they were just too damn callow and young and full of misguided loyalty to a friend, to realize how really, really, omfg serious what they were doing was, and too damn dumb to realize there was no way they wouldn’t get caught.
Lying to FBI and impeding their investigation. Never ever talk to the FBI. I naturally feel inclined to help law enforcement whenever I can but you never know who you’re dealing with.
And the FBI agent who mysteriously shot multiple times and killed the other friend? Oh yeah, he walked. Wasn’t even charged.
I’m in agreement with everything you say, but no clearer on exactly what happened.
Not that it matters. Whatever the facts, and however understandable or inconsequential his error of judgment, this kid is going down for many years, for extra-judicial reasons.