Investigators were seeking a motive for the Boston Marathon bombings and whether others were involved as they awaited a chance yesterday to interview the surviving ethnic Chechen suspect.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was in a Boston hospital seriously wounded and unable to speak, after he was captured late on Friday at the end of a huge manhunt.
His brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a firefight with police earlier on Friday.
Investigators are trying to determine if others had a role in detonating bombs made in pressure cookers and packed with ball bearings and nails that exploded at the Boston Marathon on Monday last week, killing three people and injuring 176.
Tamerlan traveled to Moscow in January last year and spent six months in the region, a law enforcement source said. However, it was unclear what he did while he was there and if he could have had contact with militant Islamist groups in Russia’s Caucasus region.
Authorities have yet to charge Dzhokhar, who will be defended by the US Federal Public Defender Office that represents criminal suspects who cannot afford a lawyer.
Sources had said he would face charges on Saturday, but late in the evening officials from the US Attorneys’ Office and the US Department of Justice indicated no statement would be made before yesterday.
The role of the FBI is also being questioned after the agency said it had interviewed Tamerlan in 2011 after Russian security services raised concerns he followed radical Islam. The FBI said it did not find any “terrorism activity” at that time.
However, the brothers’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told a Russian TV station that Tamerlan had been under FBI surveillance for years.
The New York Times, citing unnamed federal officials, reported authorities had held up Tamerlan’s application for US citizenship because of the FBI’s 2011 interview.
Records show Tamerlan was arrested when police were called to a report of domestic violence in 2009.
Dzhokhar, a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, was shot in the throat and could not speak, a source said.
“We have a million questions and those questions need to be answered,” Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick said on Saturday.
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
South Korea has adjusted its electronic arrival card system to no longer list Taiwan as a part of China, a move that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said would help facilitate exchanges between the two sides. South Korea previously listed “Taiwan” as “Taiwan (China)” in the drop-down menus of its online arrival card system, where people had to fill out where they came from and their next destination. The ministry had requested South Korea make a revision and said it would change South Korea’s name on Taiwan’s online immigration system from “Republic of Korea” to “Korea (South),” should the issue not be
Tainan, Taipei and New Taipei City recorded the highest fines nationwide for illegal accommodations in the first quarter of this year, with fines issued in the three cities each exceeding NT$7 million (US$220,639), Tourism Administration data showed. Among them, Taipei had the highest number of illegal short-term rental units, with 410. There were 3,280 legally registered hotels nationwide in the first quarter, down by 14 properties, or 0.43 percent, from a year earlier, likely indicating operators exiting the market, the agency said. However, the number of unregistered properties rose to 1,174, including 314 illegal hotels and 860 illegal short-term rental
AIR ALERT: China’s reservation of airspace over the Yellow Sea and East China Sea could be an attempt to test the US’ response ahead of a Trump-Xi meeting, the NSB head said China’s attempts to infiltrate Taiwan are systematic, planned and targeted, with activity shifting from recruiting mid-level military officers to rank-and-file enlisted personnel, National Security Bureau (NSB) Director-General Tsai Ming-yen (蔡明彥) said yesterday. The Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) integrates national security, intelligence operations and “united front” efforts into a dense network to conduct intelligence gathering and espionage in Taiwan, Tsai said at a meeting of the legislature’s Foreign Affairs and National Defense Committee. It uses specific networks to screen targets through exchange activities and recruiting local collaborators to establish intelligence-gathering organizations, he said. China is also shifting who it targets to lower-ranking military personnel,
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