In Court for First Time, Boston Bombing Suspect Will Face Victims

BOSTON — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, will stand before victims and survivors this afternoon at his arraignment in federal court here in his first appearance in public since he was captured hiding in a boat in a Boston suburb on April 19. Under tight security, Mr. Tsarnaev is expected to be required to stand before a federal magistrate judge, Marianne B. Bowler, and formally enter a plea on charges that he used a weapon of mass destruction to kill three people and wound more than 260 others near the finish line of the 117th running of the marathon on April 15.

According to the United States attorney’s office, all of the victims have been invited to the hearing, although details were not released on the number likely to come.

Mr. Tsarnaev, a 19-year-old ethnic Chechen and naturalized American citizen who in high school seemed to have a bright future, now faces the death penalty or life in prison if he is convicted. Federal prosecutors say he and his older brother Tamerlan detonated two pressure cookers filled with explosives and nails and other shrapnel near the finish line of the April 15 marathon. Prosecutors have also charged Mr. Tsarnaev in the shooting death of Sean A. Collier, a 27-year-old Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer, three nights after the bombings.

This will be Mr. Tsarnaev’s first courtroom appearance. He was charged and read his rights while he lay in a Boston hospital bed one week after the bombings — uttering the word “no” once and mostly nodding or shaking his head in response to questions — and then indicted on 30 criminal counts on June 28. Law enforcement officials have said that the day before he was charged, he admitted to playing a role in the bombings and said that he and his brother had acted alone.

Mr. Tsarnaev has recently been confined to a medical facility at Fort Devens, a United States military base 40 miles west of Boston, where he has been treated for gunshot wounds sustained during the shootout and pursuit that led to his capture in Watertown, Mass.

On Wednesday afternoon, about half a dozen members of Mr. Tsarnaev’s high-school wrestling team lined up outside the courtroom before the hearing was expected to begin, hoping for a glimpse of a once-familiar teammate who had now become a mystery.

“It’s strange,” said Shun Tsou, 20, who spent three years on the team with Mr. Tsarnaev. "I'm torn on the whole situation."

He said he was not sure yet whether he believed his former team captain was guilty, and he wanted to see what happened in court on Wednesday.

“I really want to see what his reaction is today," Mr. Tsou said, “if he doesn’t care, if he does care — I want to see.”

The John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse here was shrouded in fog and surrounded by media trucks, as preparations were made inside for the arraignment. A small cadre of law enforcement officials, including members of the Boston Police Department’s special operations team and a bomb-sniffing dog with an officer from the Department of Homeland Security police force, swept midmorning into Courtroom 10, where Mr. Tsarnaev is set to appear.

Next door, in Courtroom 11, jurors listened Wednesday morning to grisly testimony in the case against James (Whitey) Bulger, who was once South Boston’s crime boss.

Television cameras will not be able to broadcast what is expected to be a short hearing beginning at 3:30 p.m. But for victims of the blasts who have signed up to attend, and news media at the courthouse, it will be the first time to see Mr. Tsarnaev since the authorities released grainy pictures taken of him walking with his brother Tamerlan along Boylston Street just before the bombings, as well as pictures as he clambered out of the boat in the backyard of a house just before his arrest.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died early on the morning of April 19 after a gunfight with the police in Watertown, during which Dzhokhar drove over him as he escaped in a carjacked Mercedes S.U.V., according to the federal indictment.

Source: The NYT