Alleged bomber heads for 1st public court hearing

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FILE - This file photo provided Friday, April 19, 2013 by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. If the Obama administration seeks the death penalty against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, it would face a long, difficult legal battle with uncertain prospects for success in a state that hasn’t seen an execution in nearly 70 years. Attorney General Eric Holder will have to decide several months before the start of any trial whether to seek death for Tsarnaev. It is the highest-profile death-penalty decision yet to come before Holder, who personally opposes the death penalty. (AP Photo/Federal Bureau of Investigation, File)

 

DENISE LAVOIESociety

BOSTON (AP) — Survivors of the Boston Marathon bombing will watch as the young man who could face the death penalty for the attack appears in court for the first time since he was found bleeding and hiding in a boat in a suburb days after the April 15 explosion.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's arraignment was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon in federal court in Boston. He has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction in the bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260.

The courthouse is expected to be jammed for 19-year-old Tsarnaev's appearance. A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney's office said space is being reserved in the main courtroom for victims' families, but she wouldn't indicate how many planned to attend. Court officials have set aside an overflow courtroom to broadcast the court hearing for the media.

Tsarnaev has yet to appear publicly since his April 19 arrest. His initial court appearance took place at a hospital, where he was recovering from injuries suffered in a shootout with police the day before in the Boston suburb of Watertown.

He had escaped in a hijacked car after running over his brother and alleged co-conspirator, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died following a shootout with police. But he was found the next day after a lockdown in Watertown was lifted and a local homeowner noticed blood on the drydocked boat.

Tsarnaev's arrest stunned people who knew him as a likable high school athlete in Cambridge, where he lived with his older brother after his parents left for Russia.

But prosecutors say Tsarnaev, a Muslim, wrote about his motivations for the bombing on the inside walls and beams of the boat where he was hiding.

He wrote the U.S. government was "killing our innocent civilians."

"I don't like killing innocent people," he said, but also wrote "I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished. ... We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all."

The indictment also said that, sometime before the bombings, Tsarnaev downloaded Internet material from Islamic extremists that advocated violence against the perceived enemies of Islam.

Three people — Martin Richard, 8, Krystle Marie Campbell, 29, and Lingzi Lu, 23, a Boston University graduate student from China — were killed by the bombs, which were improvised from pressure cookers. Authorities also say the Tsarnaevs killed Massachusetts Institute of Technology officer Sean Collier days later while they were on the run.

Numerous bombing victims had legs amputated after the two explosions, which detonated along the final stretch of the race a couple hours after the elite runners had finished.

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