Police: 3 more in custody in marathon bombing

BOSTON (AP):

Three more suspects were taken into custody in the Boston Marathon bombing case, including two college friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who came to the United States from Kazakhstan, authorities and a defence attorney said yesterday.

Amaze Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev are charged with conspiring to obstruct justice. A third man, Robel Phillipos, is charged with making false statements to federal investigators.

In court papers, the FBI said Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev agreed to throw the backpack in the garbage, it was later found in a landfill by law enforcement officers, after concluding from news reports that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was one of the bombers.

Three people were killed and more than 260 injured on April 15 when two bombs exploded near the finish line.

Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with police several days later. His brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was captured and lies in a hospital prison.

Linda Cristello, a Boston attorney who represented Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev in immigration court yesterday morning, confirmed her clients now face separate federal charges.

The two have been held in jail for more than a week on allegations that they violated their student visas while attending the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev's relatives will claim his body now that his wife has agreed to release it, an uncle said. Tsarnaev, 26, has been at the medical examiner's office in Massachusetts since he died after a gunfight with authorities more than a week ago.

Amato DeLuca, the Rhode Island attorney for his widow, Katherine Russell, said on Tuesday that his client had just learned that the medical examiner was ready to release Tsarnaev's body and that she wants it released to his side of the family.

Full Caption: This undated photo found on the VK page of Dias Kadyrbayev shows Kadyrbayev (left) with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev at an unknown location. Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, two college buddies of Tsarnaev from Kazakhstan, were jailed by immigration authorities the day after Tsarnaev's capture. They are not suspects, but are being held for violating their student visas by not regularly attending classes, Kadyrbayev's lawyer, Robert Stahl, said. They are being detained at a county jail in Boston. - ap