A University of Massachusetts Dartmouth classmate of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev will face sentencing today in federal court.
Dias Kadyrbayev admitted that on the day the Tsarnaev brothers were identified by the FBI as suspects in the Marathon bombing that he went to the younger brother’s dorm room and helped remove evidence. During Kadyrbayev’s trial last year prosecutors presented texts he sent to Tsarnaev around 5pm, April 18, 2013 that suggested complicity: “U saw the news?” Kadyrbayev wrote and then added “u saw urself there?”
Kadyrbayev pleaded guilty last August to federal obstruction of justice and conspiracy charges. Under a plea agreement he will receive no more than a seven-year sentence. Some critics, including the ACLU, have criticized the sentence as severe. But the family of MIT police officer Sean Collier — slain hours after those text messages were sent--- has asked US District Judge Douglas Woodlock to sentence Kadyrbayev the full seven years. Kadyrbayev is the first of four friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who face sentencing this month.
