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 The trial will focus on a visit Robel Phillipos, 21, and two
Kazakh exchange students made to accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's
room, at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth on April 18,
2013, after the FBI released photos of Tsarnaev and his older
brother, identifying them as suspects in the bombing that killed
three people and injured more than 260.
The two exchange students, Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev,
were found guilty and pleaded guilty to charges of obstruction of
justice for taking a backpack containing empty fireworks shells from
the room and tossing it into a dumpster by their apartment.
Phillipos, a U.S. citizen and resident of Cambridge, Massachusetts,
faces a lesser charge, that of lying to investigators, with
prosecutors contending he initially denied entering Tsarnaev's dorm
room that night. He faces up to 16 years in prison if convicted in
U.S. District Court in Boston.
He is not the only person to face criminal charges for lying to
investigators during the investigation.
Kyrgyzstan national Khairullozhon Matanov was arrested in May and
charged with lying to investigators for playing down his
relationship with the Tsarnaev brothers after going to a local
police station to say he suspected they were the bombers.
It is unusual for prosecutors to level a charge of lying to
investigators, said Thomas Peisch, a partner at the law firm Conn
Kavanaugh and former federal prosecutor.
"It does seem something of an overreach where the government doesn't
think enough of the misstatement to make it an obstruction charge,"
Peisch said.
During Tazhayakov's July trial, jurors heard testimony about the day
that heavily armed law enforcement agents swarmed around the New
Bedford, Massachusetts, apartment building where Tazhayakov and
Kadyrbayev lived, ordered the pair to remove their shirts and
questioned them for hours about their ties to Tsarnaev.
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They also heard Tsarnaev's roommate testify that the three friends
went to the dorm room, and Phillipos and Tazhayakov watched
television while Kadyrbayev searched through Tsarnaev's belongings.
The three men are not accused of playing a role in the bombing.
Federal prosecutors also contend that Tsarnaev, 21, and his older
brother, Tamerlan, murdered a university police officer on the night
of April 18, 2013, as they prepared to flee the city.
Tamerlan died later that night after a gun battle with police, and
Dzhokhar briefly escaped, hiding for most of the next day in a
drydocked boat while police conducted a manhunt amid a lockdown of
much of the greater Boston area.
The surviving brother faces the possibility of execution if he is
convicted during a trial set to begin in January.
(Editing by Bernadette Baum)
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