On Thursday, CBS reporter Elaine Quijano told CBS This Morning that “sources tell CBS news the laptop [belonging to Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev] has been recovered.” Investigators will be scouring through the contents of the laptop to determine if it contains any evidence related to the Boston Marathon bombings Dzhokhar and his now-deceased brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev are alleged to have committed.
CBS also reported,”Investigators found the [trash] bag [containing Dzokhar Tsarnaev’s back pack] last week in a New Bedford landfill.” According to the criminal complaint filed against the two college students charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice (Kazakhstan nationals Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov) and one college student charged with lying to investigators (American citizen Robel Phillipos), the backpack contained fireworks that had been emptied of their gunpowder and a jar of vaseline.
According to the criminal complaint, Kadyrbayev recognized Tsarnaev from the picture of the suspects released by the FBI at their 5 PM press conference on Thursday, April 18.
Within a few hours, he texted Tsarnaev, telling him he looked like the suspect. “LOL,” Tsarnaev responded by return text. “Come to my room and take whatever you want.”
Upon receiving that text from Tsarnaev at approximately 8:43 PM on Thursday evening, Kadyrbayev, Tazhayakov, and Phillipos went to Tsarnaev’s apartment in New Bedford near the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, according to the complaint.
When they entered the room, they saw Dzhokhar’s laptop and backpack, which contained fireworks emptied of their gunpowder. In an attempt to keep their friend out of trouble, and believing both the laptop and backpack implicated him in the Boston Marathon bombings, Kadyrbayev placed the items in a trash bag, which he then threw away in a dumpster.
A garbage truck emptied the contents of the dumpster the next day into a local New Bedford landfill, where they were later recovered by investigators.
Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov are known for driving a black BMW with the license plate “Terrorista #1” around campus. They were pictured with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in New York City in 2012 while visiting Times Square.
Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov were taken into custody on April 19 for staying in the United States illegally beyond the expiration date of their student visas. Tazhayakov previously left the United States but then returned on January 20, 2013 and was allowed to enter the country despite having an expired student visa. Despite this border security failure, Department of Homeland Security Deputy Press Secretary Peter Boogard claimed, “At the time of re-entry there was no derogatory information that suggested this individual posed a national security or public safety threat.”
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