Prosecutors Suspect Tsarnaevs Had Outside 'Training or Assistance'

The level of sophistication taken to build the bomb that wounded hundreds at the Boston Marathon last year, including the use of fireworks and Christmas lights, has led prosecutors to believe the Tsarnaev brothers may have had accomplices or previous terrorist training.

According to court documents obtained by CNN, prosecutors are arguing that evidence points to someone with significant bomb training masterminding the construction of the pressure cooker bomb the Tsarnaev brothers used at the Boston Marathon. The bombs, prosecutors note, “were constructed using improvised fuses made from Christmas lights and improvised, remote-control detonators fashioned from model car parts,” a creation that “would have been difficult for the Tsarnaevs to fabricate successfully without training or assistance from others.”

The documents, from a motion filed by federal prosecutors Wednesday, also claim that there is evidence that accomplices may have helped the brothers, as no trace of the fireworks crushed and used as explosives in the bombs was found in the homes of either Dzhokhar or Tamerlan Tsarnaev. This suggests that the bombs were built somewhere else. Authorities, the report continues, have “reason to believe that the Tsarnaevs had accomplices and that they or others might have built additional bombs that posed a continuing danger to public safety.” 

The documents are filings from the prosecution in response to a motion by the defense to suppress certain evidence, arguing that the younger Tsarnaev was never read his Miranda rights and questioned in prison. Prosecutors argue that they did not need to read Tsarnaev his Miranda rights because his questioning fell under an exception to interrogation rules that is triggered by “imminent” danger–in this case the danger created by the chance that the Tsarnaevs or–if they had them–accomplices had planted other bombs around the city.

Also revealed in the documents are excerpts from notes written by the younger Tsarnaev during his fugitive state in a boat in Watertown. The notes, published in The Boston Globe, clearly show the younger Tsarnaev’s Islamist intentions. “We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all. Well at least that’s how muhhammad (pbuh) wanted it to be [for]ever,” reads one part of the note. Another warns, “Know you are fighting men who look into the barrel of your gun and see heaven, now how can you compete with that.” Dzhokhar Tsarnaev also notes that his heavenly plan was “to hide in this boat and shed some light on our actions.”

The younger Tsarnaev has denied that he and his brother had any accomplices or that there were more bombs made and hidden in different places in Boston.