Friend Texted Tsarnaev: Boston Bomber ‘Looks Just Like You’
A college friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev texted the Boston Marathon bombing suspect to tell him: One of the Boston bombers “looks just like you.”
19-year-old Dias Kadyrbayev (pictured above with Tsarnaev) sent the text three days after bombs had killed three people and injured 260 more at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Kadyrbayev was responding to the images of the bombing suspects released by the FBI. Tsarnaev’s reply to his friend was simple and potentially incriminating:
“LOL. You better not text me … come to my room and take whatever you want.”
Kadyrbayev, who knew Tsarnaev at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, showed Tsarnaev’s message to a friend, Azamat Tazhayakov, another of Tsarnaev’s college acquaintances. The text exchange was one of the first clues used by the FBI to identity one of the Boston Marathon bombers.
Kadyrbayev’s astute and chilling observation could have landed him in hot water.
The teenager and Tazhayakov are accused of helping Tsarnaev get rid of incriminating evidence. Along with 19-year-old American citizen Robel Phillipos, they face charges of conspiring to obstruct justice and making false statements. If convicted, Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov face up to five years in prison, while Phillipos could receive a maximum sentence of eight years.
Court papers in their trial note how Tazhayakov “believed he would never see Tsarnaev alive again” when Kadyrbayev showed him the bombing suspect’s text. As it happens, he just might – albeit behind bars.
