Boston Marathon Bombing Suspect's Classmates to Be Arraigned Friday

By Liz Taurasi

Three college classmates of accused Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be arraigned in federal court Friday morning.

In a complaint filed in federal court in May, Special Agent Scott Cieplik claimed suspect Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov destroyed or concealed a laptop and backpack filled with fireworks. Third suspect Robel Phillipos was being charged with lying to federal officials.

The three were formally indicted by a Grand Jury in August and are being arraigned on charges today.

Kadyrbayev, Tazhayakov and Phillipos, who all attended University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with Tsarnaev, are accused of disposing of a backpack they found in Tsarnaev’s Pine Dale Hall dorm room that contained fireworks emptied of gunpowder and a laptop computer at around 10 p.m. on April 18. Kadyrbayev stuffed the backpack, fireworks and laptop in a black trash bag and threw it in a trash dumpster near the Carriage Drive apartments in New Bedford where Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov lived.

Hours before, after seeing the photos released by the FBI of Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Kadyrbayev texted Dzokhar Tsarnaev and told him he looks like the suspect, according to the complaint, filed by FBI special agent Scott P. Cieplik. It was then that they decided to go to Tsarnaev’s dorm room and take action.

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov each face one count of conspiracy to obstruct justice, and Phillipos faces a charge of making false statements in a terrorism investigation.