MAKESHIFT MEMORIAL FOR VICTIMS: People gather at a makeshift memorial for victims near the site of the Boston Marathon bombings a day after the second suspect was captured. — AFP photo
BOSTON, Massachusetts: Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remained in serious condition in a Boston hospital yesterday unable to answer questions on the devastating attack, officials said.
Investigators released stunning images of Tsarnaev’s final moments of freedom, slumbering wounded in a boat in a suburban backyard. They are also stepping up inquiries into a trip to Muslim regions of Russia taken by his accomplice brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The 19-year-old is “serious but stable,” Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick told reporters Saturday. “I think not able to communicate yet.”
CNN and other media said he had suffered a throat wound during his cavalcade which ended late Friday after a massive manhunt in which Tamerlan was killed.
The Tsarnaev brothers are the main suspects in the double bomb attack on the Boston marathon which killed three people wounded about 180. A policeman was killed and another was left fighting for his life after gunbattles during the hunt.
Governor Patrick said he hopes the teenager survives. “We have a million questions and those questions need to be answered,” he added.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was under armed guard at a hospital where some victims of the bombings are also being treated. Counter-terrorism agents trained in interrogating ‘high-value’ detainees were 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.
Media reports say authorities did not read Tsarnaev his normal rights to see a lawyer or stay when he was captured, invoking a special exception for security reasons.
That has left US authorities facing tough decisions over how to handle the investigation and any trial.
Republican Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham have led calls for the teenager to be declared an “enemy combatant,” which would give him the same status as Guantanamo “war on terror” detainees.
Legal rights groups have been quick to insist that he face a criminal trial, even though Tsarnaev would be likely to face a death penalty calls.
Fifty-eight of the victims from the bomb attack are still in Boston hospitals, with three in critical condition.