Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, one of the two men suspected of carrying out the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing, talked about opening a Starbucks in Kazakhstan before the attack occurred.
According to an FBI agent who testified at a federal hearing on Thursday, Tsarnaev and his friend Dias Kadyrbayev discussed the business proposition together.
"[Kadyrbayev] was going to start a business with Dzhokhar," said FBI Special Agent Steven Schiliro, according to an
ABC News report. Kadyrbayev told investigators it would be a Starbucks.
Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov lived in a housing complex in New Bedford, Mass., and Tsarnaev would sometimes stay with them. The pair was arrested, released, and then arrested again by authorities in the days following the bombing and held on immigration violations. They were eventually charged with concealing evidence that tied Tsarnaev to the bombing.
According to the
official criminal complaint, the two men, "[w]illfully conspire[d] with each other to commit an offense against the United States […] by knowingly destroying, concealing and covering up objects belonging to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, namely, a backpack containing fireworks and a laptop computer, with the intent to impede, obstruct, and influence the criminal investigation of the Marathon bombings."
A federal suppression hearing in Boston this week is challenging statements the duo made, along with former Tsarnaev acquaintance Robel Phillipos, on the grounds that they provided them without an attorney present and they had not been arrested before being interviewed.
According to the ABC News story, Kadyrbayev also joked with investigators about joining the FBI and smoking marijuana.
Tsarnaev, now 20, is awaiting trial in the deaths of four people — three spectators that were killed at the scenes of dual blasts caused by homemade pressure cooker bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon, and one MIT police officer who was killed a few days later. His brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the other alleged bomber, was killed during an intense shootout with police three days after the bombing.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was discovered later that day hiding in a boat behind a residence in Watertown, Mass. He was arrested and faces 30 charges related to the bombing and the firefight with police. If convicted, he could be put to death.
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