When the alleged Boston Marathon bomber was told by one of his friends that he resembled one of the suspects in the widely released surveillance video, he sent a chilling response, "Lol, you better not text me," an affidavit unsealed yesterday said.
The brief interaction between bombing suspect Dzhokhar, 19, and his friend Dias Kadyrbayev occurred three days after the April 15 bombing, the affidavit was quoted by Fox News as saying.
Kadyrbayev was among the three teenage college friends of Dzhokhar who tried to save him although they knew that he was involved in the terrorist attack, with two of them destroying his key belongings and the third lying to the police.
But little did they knew that their effort would land them in jail for helping someone who is suspected of two bomb blasts in Boston that killed three people and injured more than 250 others on April 15, in one of the worst terrorist attack in the US post 9/11.
The FBI yesterday arrested and charged Kadyrbayev, and Azamat Tazhayakov, both of New Bedford in Massachusetts, of trying to destroy the key evidences, a laptop computer and a backpack containing fireworks.
A third, Robel Phillipos, is charged with making false statements to officials.
Dzhokhar also texted Kadyrbayev to say, "Come to my room and take whatever you want," according to the affidavit.
"Kadyrbayev knew when he saw the empty fireworks that Tsarnaev was involved in the marathon bombing," the affidavit said.
"Kadyrbayev decided to remove the backpack from the room in order to help his friend Tsarnaev avoid trouble," it said.
The exchange came just a few hours before Dzhokhar and his brother Tamerlan would carjack a Chinese immigrant, murder an MIT police officer and engage in a wild shootout with police through the streets of Cambridge and Watertown, police say.
26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev died on April 19 in a shootout, hours after authorities showed the brothers on surveillance video and named them as suspects.
Documents based on interviews with the young men also revealed that Dzhokhar allegedly dropped sinister hints before the attack, telling his friends a month before that he had learned how to make a bomb.
However, it wasn't until the FBI released a surveillance photo of the suspects that the friends realised Dzhokhar may have been involved.
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