Accused Boston Bombers Used Cambridge Arsenal In Final Fight: Prosecutors

[June 04, 2014]  BOSTON (Reuters) - The ethnic Chechen brothers accused of carrying out the Boston Marathon bombing returned to their family's Cambridge, Massachusetts, apartment to gather weapons after the FBI released photos of the duo three days after the attack, prosecutors said on Tuesday.

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who are accused of shooting dead a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer the night of April 18, 2013, sprang into action after U.S. officials released photos, according to court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Boston.

"Almost immediately, (Dzhokhar) Tsarnaev left UMass-Dartmouth, drove back to Cambridge, and met his brother at the Norfolk Street apartment, where they collected a small arsenal of weapons, including at least six bombs, a handgun and other weapons, and then embarked on a murderous crime spree," federal prosecutors said in a court filing.

Prosecutors are arguing against a bid by defense attorneys to have evidence found in the search of that apartment thrown out at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's upcoming trial on charges of committing the bombing that killed three people and injured 264.

Prosecutors say the brothers killed the MIT police officer and engaged in a gun battle with police in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Massachusetts, that ended with 26-year-old Tamerlan dead. Dzhokhar, now 20, briefly escaped and was captured the following evening.

He is now awaiting trial and faces the risk of execution if convicted of carrying out the largest mass-casualty attack on U.S. soil since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington.

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Jim Loney)

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