A NEW VIDEO released by State police shows how they found a wounded Boston bombing suspect hiding in a boat in a backyard.
The three-minute-long video shows infra-red and heat-seeking footage where the shape of a man’s body can be seen lying in the boat. It also shows what appears to be one or two small explosions occurring at the top of the boat.
A vehicle, possibly remote-controlled by police, is seen approaching the boat and lifting the tarpaulin covering it. Across from the vehicle lies a figure, a person who is at that time perhaps the USA’s most wanted man: Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The second suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings the previous Monday, he and his brother Tamerlan found themselves pursued by police after the shooting of an MIT policeman and a carjacking by the siblings on Friday night.
That led to a high-speed chase that culminated in a shootout in Watertown, where Tamerlan, the elder sibling, died. He was shot but reportedly had explosives on his body that he detonated.
Watertown police chief Edward Deveau told AFP the siblings had at least six bombs with them while being chased, and that Dzhokhar had driven over his brother as he escaped.
Dzhokhar escaped from police but after a long and intense manhunt – during which Boston was effectively put in lockdown, with businesses and schools closed and residents voluntarily keeping off the streets – he was located in Watertown.
A local, Dave Henneberry, told police he saw blood on his boat and discovered the teen hiding there in his back garden. This video below shows police helicopter footage of what happened as police tried to get Dzhokhar out of the boat:
(LowellSun/YouTube)
Hospital
After his capture, Tsarnaev was taken to a Boston hospital, where he is said to remain in serious condition today. Officials say he is currently unable to answer questions on the devastating attack.
AFP reports that authorities are stepping up inquiries into a trip to Muslim regions of Russia taken by his accomplice brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan.
The Tsarnaev brothers are the main suspects in the double bomb attack on the Boston marathon in which three people were killed and about 180 wounded.
Dzhokhar is under armed guard and counter-terrorism agents trained in interrogating “high-value” detainees are waiting to question him, a law official told AFP.
Prosecutors were also at the Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital in Cambridge, just outside Boston, working out charges.
Trial
Media reports say authorities did not read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights to see a lawyer or stay when he was captured, and invoked a special exception for security reasons. That has left US authorities facing tough decisions over how to handle the investigation and any trial, says AFP.
Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham are among those who have called for the teenager to be declared an “enemy combatant,” which would give him the same status as Guantanamo detainees.
The Tsarnaev family are ethnic Chechens who moved to the United States from the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan around 2002. Tamerlan’s six month trip to the Russian region of Dagestan last year is said to be of great interest.
The FBI has acknowledged that an unnamed foreign government asked for information about Tamerlan in 2011, and that he was interviewed by the FBI but it had found no “derogatory” information.
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