Prosecutors release note of Boston bombing suspect, defend questioning
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was questioned for 36 hours without an attorney 鈥� and the defense wants his statements excluded as evidence. Prosecutors, defending the interrogation, cite a note Tsarnaev is alleged to have written while hiding in a boat.
Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was questioned for 36 hours without an attorney 鈥� and the defense wants his statements excluded as evidence. Prosecutors, defending the interrogation, cite a note Tsarnaev is alleged to have written while hiding in a boat.
Suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev "readily admitted his own involvement" in the 2013 bombings at the Boston Marathon "from the moment the agents began questioning" him, federal prosecutors said in a court filing Wednesday.
The prosecution refuted the defense鈥檚 claims that such statements 鈥� made from Mr. Tsarnaev's hospital bed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston in the hours after his arrest 鈥� are inadmissible in court because the federal agents had not informed him of his right to an attorney.
The defense charged, in a filing earlier this month, that prosecutors interrogated Tsarnaev for 36 hours while he was under the influence of painkillers and suffering from gunshot wounds, 鈥渄espite the fact that he quickly allayed concerns about any continuing threat to public safety, repeatedly asked for a lawyer, and begged to rest.鈥�
The prosecution maintains that investigators had reason to believe that there could still be imminent danger to the public in the days after Tsarnaev鈥檚 arrest.
鈥淔inding out if there were聽other bombs, other bombers, or others plotting similar and coordinated attacks was a public safety聽matter of the utmost urgency,鈥� the government's filing states.
The prosecution further insisted that 鈥渢he length of the questioning was not designed to break down聽Tsarnaev鈥檚 will to resist so that he would confess,鈥� but rather was necessitated by the suspect's need for frequent breaks and difficulty speaking due to a tracheostomy.
Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to 30 federal charges, including using a weapon of mass destruction, related to the April 15, 2013, bombings that killed three people and injured 260 others near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. If convicted, Tsarnaev could face the death penalty, though the defense has filed a motion requesting that the federal death penalty be declared unconstitutional in this case. The prosecution opposed that motion in a separate filing Wednesday.
Tsarnaev鈥檚 older brother and alleged accomplice, Tamerlan, was killed as a result of a gun battle in nearby Watertown, Mass., four days after the bombing. Tsarnaev was later arrested after spending several hours hiding in a boat in a Watertown backyard.
Prosecutors said a note scrawled inside the boat 鈥渂ears hallmarks of al-Q鈥檃eda-inspired rhetoric鈥� and led agents to believe that the brothers may not have acted alone.
The full text of that note reads:
This report includes material from Reuters and the Associated Press.