Dias Kadyrbayev (L) and Azamat Tazhayakov are pictured in a courtroom sketch at the John Joseph Moakley United States Federal Courthouse in Boston. ©REUTERS The next hearing of the case of Kazakhstan students accused of preventing justice by tempering with evidences in Boston bombings case may be held in a week, Interfax-Kazakhstan reports.
“The hearing of the criminal case was scheduled for May 14. But it was postponed upon our request. The reason is that we have no materials. The initial accusation that is well-known to public is all there is in the case,” Azamat Tazhayakov’s attorney Arkady Bukh told Interfax-Kazakhstan.
He elaborated that the accusation included testimonies of two people: “They say that Kadyrbayev took the backpack and the laptop of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, went back to his apartment (from Tsarnaev's dormitory) and then threw them away. Whereas about my client, Azamat, they say that he somehow gave a consent to that, which implies conspiracy."
Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov are both 19-y.o. Kazakhstan students who were studying in the U.S. and happened to be classmates of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
The lawyer explained that according to American conspiracy theory, the term "consent" may mean a nod, silent consent or some spoken word.
“It is unclear to the defendants how exactly he expressed his consent, as it is not described in the accusation. That’s why we asked for a short break to sort out the situation, speak to the prosecutors and understand how they worded the accusation,” he explained.
“We asked to postpone the hearing and they agreed. As the media is pressing and there is a lot of attention to the case, I don’t think that the delay will be long. We are thinking about one or two weeks. We will know the new date in the nearest time,” Bukh said.
Earlier Tengrinews.kz reported that the 19-y.o. Kazakhstan students were accused of conspiring to destroy evidences in the Boston bombings case.
The students may be sentenced to 5 years in jail and a penalty of $250 thousand.
The students confessed that they took the backpack and the laptop. The evidences was later found at the waste dump. FBI believes that “they took the backpack from Dzhkhar Tsarnayev’s room after they heard on the news that Dzhokhar was suspected of committing the terrorist attack.”