Lawyers for accused Boston bomber due in court on Thursday

[August 14, 2014]  BOSTON (Reuters) - Lawyers for accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are due in court on Thursday to argue pre-trial motions, including a request to move the trial out of Boston and what evidence may be shown at trial.

Federal prosecutors contend that Dzhokhar, along with his older brother Tamerlan, detonated a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the race's crowded finish line, killing three people and injuring more than 260 on April 15, 2013.

Three days later, prosecutors contend, the Tsarnaevs shot dead a university police officer, sparking a gun battle that left Tamerlan dead and led to a day-long manhunt for Dzhokhar, who is awaiting trial on charges that carry the death penalty.

Defense lawyers have asked U.S. District Judge George O'Toole to move the trial out of Boston, contending that too many potential jurors would have been at, or known someone who was at the race, which draws hundreds of thousands of spectators.

Prosecutors have argued against changing the venue, contending the defense has not proved that it would not be possible to pick an unbiased jury.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's trial is set to begin in November.

The Tsarnaevs brothers are ethnic Chechens who lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, just outside Boston, for a decade before the bombing.

(Reporting by Scott Malone. Editing by Andre Grenon)

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