BOSTON - Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhohkar Tsarnaev was moved from a hospital to a federal prison medical center Friday, and FBI agents searched for evidence in a landfill near the college he attended.
Tsarnaev, 19, was taken from Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, where he had been recovering from a gunshot wound in the throat and other injuries suffered during a getaway attempt, and transferred to the Federal Medical Center Devens, about 40 miles from Boston, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The facility, which is on a former Army base, treats federal prisoners.
The FBI’s investigation of the April 15 bombing has turned from identification and apprehension of suspects to piecing together details of the plot, including how long the planning took, how it was carried out and whether anyone else knew or was involved.
A federal law enforcement official not authorized to speak on the record about the investigation told The Associated Press on the condition of anonymity Friday that the FBI is gathering evidence regarding “everything imaginable.”
FBI agents Friday picked through a landfill near the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where Tsarnaev was a sophomore. FBI spokesman Jim Martin would not say what investigators were looking for.
An aerial photo in Friday’s Boston Globe showed a line of more than 20 investigators, all dressed in white overalls and yellow boots, picking over the garbage with shovels or rakes.
Investigators also have continued to interview people who were close to Tsarnaev, including two young men from Kazakhstan who were students with him at UMass Dartmouth.
Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev were jailed by immigration authorities the day after Tsarnaev’s capture.Kadyrbayev’s lawyer, former federal prosecutor Robert Stahl, said the pair, who had partied with Tsarnaev and other students at an off-campus apartment, had nothing to do with the attack and had no idea their friend harbored any violent thoughts.
“These kids are just as shocked and horrified about what happened as everyone else,” Stahl said. He said they are being held for violating their student visas by not regularly attending classes and want to return to Kazakhstan as soon as possible.
U.S. officials, meanwhile, said that the bombing suspects’ mother had been added to a federal terrorism database about 18 months before the deadly attack - a disclosure that deepens the mystery around the Tsarnaev family and marks the first time American authorities have acknowledged that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was under investigation beforethe tragedy.
The news is certain to fuel questions about whether President Barack Obama’s administration missed opportunities to thwart the April 15 bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 260.
Tsarnaev is charged with joining with his older brother, now dead, in setting off the shrapnel-packed pressure-cooker bombs. The brothers are ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago with their parents. Investigators have said it appears that the brothers were angry about the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Two government officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the investigation, said the CIA had Tsarnaeva’s name added to the terror database along with that of her son Tamerlan Tsarnaev after Russia contacted the agency in 2011 with concerns that the two were religious militants.
About six months earlier, the FBI investigated mother and son, also at Russia’s request, one of the officials said. The FBI found no ties to terrorism. Previously, U.S. officials had said only that the FBI had investigated Tamerlan.
In an interview from Russia, Tsarnaeva said Friday that she has never been linked to terrorism.
“It’s all lies and hypocrisy,” she told The Associated Press from Dagestan. “I’m sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I’ve never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism.”
Tsarnaeva faces shoplifting charges in the U.S. over the alleged theft of more than $1,624 worth of women’s clothing from a Lord & Taylor department store in Natick, Mass., in 2012.
Information for this article was contributed by Colleen Long and Julie Pace of The Associated Press.
Front Section, Pages 2 on 04/27/2013