Texts, laptop files in focus at Boston Marathon bombing trial

On Monday, the jury saw text messages that the prosecution says accused Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sent to a friend after the deadly 2013 attack.

|
Jane Flavell Collins/AP
In this courtroom sketch, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, right, and defense attorney Judy Clarke are depicted watching evidence displayed on a monitor during his federal death penalty trial Monday, March 9, 2015, in Boston.

Jurors in the trial of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev were shown text messages on Monday that prosecutors say he sent to a friend shortly after the attack, saying: "U saw the news?... Better not text me my friend."

FBI computer specialist Kevin Swindon said the texts came from Tsarnaev's iPhone and were sent to Dias Kadyrbayev, a school friend from the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, who has since pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice for removing evidence from Tsarnaev's dorm room. Swindon said he identified the texts from a backup file on Tsarnaev's laptop.

In testimony last week, Swindon said copies of Al Qaeda's "Inspire" magazine were found on his laptop, including one titled: "How to Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom."

Defense attorneys have admitted that the 21-year-old defendant committed all the crimes he is accused of, but are trying to spare his life in the capital case by arguing that Tsarnaev's brother was the mastermind of the attacks.

On Monday, defense attorney William Fick grilled Swindon in cross-examination in an attempt to point out that it was unclear where the files on Tsarnaev's computer originated, and that there was a chance some were placed there by Tamerlan or others.

Tsarnaev is accused of killing three people and injuring 264 with a pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs at the race's crowded finish line on April 15, 2013, and with fatally shooting a police officer three days later as he and his 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, tried to flee the city.

Tamerlan died following a gunfight with police later that night and Dzhokhar was arrested after a homeowner in the suburb of Watertown found him hiding in a boat in his backyard. He left a note in that boat suggesting that the attacks were an act of retribution for US military campaigns in Muslim-dominated countries and that he viewed his brother as a martyr.

Fick asked Swindon on Monday about a thumb drive investigators had found at a landfill along with other items belonging to Dzhokhar, which contained files on how to make explosives: "Isn't it true that every file and folder on this drive was created by Tamerlan's computer?"

"I don't know," Swindon replied.

Fick also asked Swindon whether the files he discussed in court represented a "fly speck" of data held on the laptop, which was otherwise filled with files like homework assignments and pop music clips. Swindon said he needed a definition of "fly speck."

Prosecutors introduced terrorism expert Matthew Levitt, senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, as a witness on Monday. Levitt said the bombing fit into a broader "global jihad movement" that encourages violence targeting the United States.

"Do you have to be in a terrorist group to be part of the movement?" Assistant US Attorney Aloke Chakravarty asked.

"No, by definition, you don't," Levitt said. "You can get your indoctrination, your motivation, your schooling, online."

The bombing killed restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, 29, graduate student Lingzi Lu, 23, and 8-year-old Martin Richard. Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer Sean Collier, 27, was shot dead three days later.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Texts, laptop files in focus at Boston Marathon bombing trial
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Justice/2015/0323/Texts-laptop-files-in-focus-at-Boston-Marathon-bombing-trial
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe