Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will be arraigned Wednesday at the Moakley Federal Courthouse at 3:30 p.m. where he is expected to enter a plea. He faces 30 criminal charges of which 17 carry the possibility of the death penalty. This will be the first time Tsarnaev has faced the public since he was removed, covered in blood, from a drydocked boat after a Watertown resident found the alleged Boston Marathon bomber barricaded in his backyard.
The Moakley Federal Courthouse is expected to be jammed for 19-year-old Tsarnaev’s afternoon arraignment. Space is being reserved for the bombing victims and their families in the main courtroom. An overflow courtroom has been set aside for the media where the arraignment will be broadcasted. Reporters and spectators have been lining up for a seat in the courtroom since as early as 7:30 a.m ET. There are several Protective Service officers and bomb-sniffing dogs monitoring the courthouse as a precaution.
Tsarnaev, along with his older brother Tamerlan stand accused of killing four and injuring upwards of 264 in dual bombings that detonated near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon. 34 of the surviving victims were forced to undergo amputations due to the severity of their wounds.
After going undetected by authorities for four days, the Tsarnaev brothers then allegedly shot and killed MIT police officer Sean Collier, carjacked an SUV, and engaged police in a firefight that resulted in the injuring of an MBTA police officer. During the shootout, Tamerlan was killed and Dzhokhar fled in the vehicle, running over his brother’s mangled body.
Police then set up a 20-block radius in Boston suburb Watertown as the entire metro region remained under lockdown. On the night of April 19, Tsarnaev was found in the boat where he was swiftly apprehended.
Prosecutors say that Tsarnaev wrote his motivations for the bombings inside the boat he was hiding out in. He wrote that the United States government was “killing our innocent civilians” and that “I don’t like killing innocent people.” But he also wrote that “I can’t stand to see such evil go unpunished. … We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all.”
Three people lost their lives during the Marathon bombings: Martin Richard, 8, Lingzi Lu, 23, and Krystle Marie Campbell, 29. Numerous other victims had limbs amputated after the bombs detonated along the final stretch of the race on Boylston St.
Live tweets and updates of the arraignment can be found here.
