Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect To Face Charges Soon

Boston bombing suspect2

Federal prosecutors were putting the finishing touches on charges against the surviving marathon bombing suspect on Sunday, even as officials raised questions about the extent to which they may be able to question the surviving suspect.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old man accused in the Boston Marathon bombing that killed three people and injured more than 180 remained in serious condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center recovering, but still unable to talk as he suffers a wound to his throat.

This has delayed efforts by the special high value detainee interrogation team to talk to him without advising him of his Miranda rights, a source said. The “public safety exemption” allows investigators to question a suspect when it is thought that he or she might have vital information about a threat against public safety. Barring his ill health and inability to talk, law enforcement sources said their goal was to file charges against Tsarnaev today.

Gov. Deval Patrick told reporters Saturday that Tsarnaev was “unable to communicate.”

In an interview Sunday, Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said investigators may never be able to orally question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. “And we don’t know if we’ll ever be able to question the individual,” Menino said without further explanation.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remained in “serious condition,” the FBI said in a statement released on Sunday at the request of the hospital where a number of bombing victims also have received treatment.

The chairman of the House Intelligence Committee said on “Meet the Press” on Sunday that 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar’s brother who was killed in a firefight with police following a wild chase into the suburb of Watertown on Thursday night, may have traveled under an alias when he took a trip to Russia in 2012.
That trip may have been when Tamerlan Tsarnaev “got that final radicalization to push him to commit acts of violence and where he may have received training,” said committee chair Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich.

Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel said he has not seen evidence to link the bombings to any militant or terrorist group on Sunday, and declined to speculate on whether or not Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could be sent to Guantanamo Bay.

“We just don’t have the facts, and until we get the facts, then it will be the responsibility of law enforcement, DOJ, and other institutions to make some determination as to how that individual should be treated, detained, charged, and all that goes with it,” Hagel said. “But right now we just don’t know enough about it.”

About 36,000 runners participated in the London Marathon on Sunday amid heightened security, many of them wearing black ribbons to commemorate the victims in Boston or carrying “For Boston” signs.