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. The 20-year-old defendant, Azamat Tazhayakov, 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.
“That agreement to take items out, to remove items because they suspected he was the bomber — that is a
conspiracy to obstruct justice,” Capin told the jury.
But Tazhayakov’s lawyer, Matthew Myers, said Tazhayakov and Phillipos sat passively watching a movie in
Tsarnaev’s dorm room as Kadyrbayev took the backpack. Myers said Kadyrbayev decided to throw away the
bag after his girlfriend ordered him to “get it out of the apartment.”
Myers said Tazhayakov was prosecuted simply because he was a “friend of the bomber.”
“He’s a friend of a kid who committed a heinous act, and friends of bombers are enemies of ours,” Myers
said. “Guilt by association — that’s exactly what this case is about.”
The jury was expected to begin deliberating later Wednesday after receiving instructions from Judge
Douglas Woodlock.
Kadyrbayev will be tried separately in September. Phillipos, who is charged with lying to investigators,
also faces a separate trial.
Tsarnaev is awaiting a November trial and faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.
Prosecutors allege Tsarnaev and his brother, Tamerlan, carried out the bombings and killed a
Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer days later. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died following a
shootout with police the night the officer was killed. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured hiding in a boat
in a Watertown backyard.