Tazhayakov's defendants start own investigation in Boston

Defendants of Azamat Tazhayakov, one of the two Kazakhstan students apprehended after the Boston bombing, have postponed the hearing scheduled for May 14 and initiated their own investigation, the student’s attorney Arkadiy Bukh told RIA Novosti. “The hearings were postponed upon our request for an unspecified period of time. We want to understand what proof the prosecutors have. Right now the accusations look quite blurry. Such quickly-initiated cases and fast arrests usually do not find good proofs in court,” Bukh said. According to him, the defendants doubt the prosecutors’ statement that the suspects conspired to eliminate an evidence in the Boston bombings case. The lawyer confirmed that Tazhayakov cooperated with the investigators and gave a testimony. “He completely denies that he agreed to eliminate the evidence. The FBI agent states in his report that my client has allegedly agreed to destroy certain things. I did not see how exactly he agreed to that: nodding, silent consent or the prosecutors just felt so,” Bukh said. Testimonies of key witnesses -- Dzhokhar Tsarnayev’s roommate and a girlfriend of one of the arrested students, who were together with Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev during the alleged “elimination of evidence” -- will be important for the Kazakhstan students. The lawyer did not give their names, but said that the girlfriend was also from Kazakhstan. “We hired a former FBI agent for our own investigation,” Bukh said noting that the student’s defending team included six people. The attorney also said that he met Azamat’s family and believed that he had nothing to do with the bombing. “This family is not religious and there are no jihad motifs,” he said. According to Bukh, Tazhayakov is currently held in an individual cell. “He is a patient guy. I have not heard any complaints from him. But being in an individual cell is usually psychologically very difficult. We managed to arrange a meeting for him with his father who arrived to the U.S.,” the attorney said. Bukh added that BMW with TERRORISTA#1 plate was owned by both arrested students and the plate was a gift from a girlfriend of one of them and was associated with some pop band, not with Osama ben Laden. Azamat Tazhayakov and the other Kazakhstan student Dias Kadyrbayev were arrested for alleged violation of U.S. immigration regulations on April 20. They were detained by the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement at the Suffolk County House of Corrections in Boston. But no visa regime violation charges have been presented to them so far. Instead, after the FBI started looking into Tsarnaev's connections they were found to have communicated with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in text messages, and were presented with the criminal charges of obstructing investigation by tempering with evidences. They are not suspected of being involved in the bombings or the preparations.