(CNN) — Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has told investigators his older brother Tamerlan was the driving force behind last week’s attack and that no international terrorist groups were behind them, a U.S. government source said Monday.
Preliminary interviews with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev indicate the two brothers fit the classification of self-radicalized jihadists, the source said. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, now held in a Boston hospital, said his brother wanted to defend Islam from attack, according to the source.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death and one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death, the Justice Department announced Monday. The 19-year-old was “alert, mentally competent and lucid,” U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler found during the brief initial court appearance that took place in Tsarnaev’s hospital room.
Read transcript of the hearing
Tsarnaev was shot several times before his arrest Friday night and was heavily sedated an on a ventilator at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital. During the hearing, he communicated mostly by nodding his head, though he once answered “No” when Bowler asked him if he could afford a lawyer, according to a transcript of the proceeding. A public defender was appointed to represent him.
Investigators have been asking Tsarnaev whether there are more bombs, explosives caches or weapons beyond those already found by police, and if anyone else was involved in the attacks, a source with first-hand knowledge of the investigation told CNN. Investigators are going into Tsarnaev’s room every few hours to ask questions in the presence of doctors, the source said.
Federal agents at first questioned Tsarnaev without reading him his Miranda rights, under an exception to the rule invoked when authorities believe there is an imminent public safety threat, a Justice Department official said over the weekend. But by the time of the hospital room proceeding, government sources said he had been read his rights, and Bowler reviewed those with him again Monday.
Bowler scheduled a probable cause hearing for May 30.
Tsarnaev had been shot in the head, neck, legs and one hand, according to an FBI affidavit supporting the charges. He had lost a lot of blood and may have hearing loss from two flash-bang devices used to draw him out of the boat, the source said.
It wasn’t clear whether Tsarnaev was wounded during his capture Friday or in an earlier shootout with police that left his older brother dead, said the source, a federal law enforcement source with knowledge of the investigation who talked with CNN.
Among the pieces of evidence collected from Boylston Street during the past week was a tree that Tsarnaev may have leaned against before the bombing, according to a source who receives regular intelligence briefings on the Boston bombings. The source said the tree — located at the site of the second blast — was removed along with the surrounding grate, where the explosive device’s circuit board was found.
White House: No ‘enemy combatant’ status
The decision to charge Tsarnaev in civilian court put an end to speculation that he would be charged as an enemy combatant, a designation sometimes used against terrorists. White House spokesman Jay Carney said that Tsarnaev is a naturalized U.S. citizen and cannot be tried by a military commission.
Trying Tsarnaev in civilian courts — like “hundreds of terrorists” to date — is “absolutely the right way to go and the appropriate way to go,” Carney said. “We have a long history of successfully prosecuting terrorists and bringing them to justice, and the president fully believes that that process will work in this case.”
That disappointed Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who has been calling since the arrest for Tsarnaev to be handed over to U.S. intelligence for questioning as an “enemy combatant.”
“There is ample evidence here on the criminal side,” Graham said. “A first-year law student could prosecute this case. What I am worried about is, what does this individual know about future attacks or terrorist organizations that may be in our midst? We have the right to gather intelligence.”
Graham also said there was also “ample evidence” that the bombings were “inspired by radical ideology.”
But while the suspect’s older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, apparently became increasingly radical in the past three or four years, according to an analysis of his social media accounts and the recollections of family members, there was no evidence Monday that he had any active association with international jihadist groups. And an affidavit outlining the charges against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are silent as to the motive for the bombing.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died after a shootout with police early Friday. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured that night, after police found him hiding in a boat in the back yard of a house in the Boston suburb of Watertown, Massachusetts.
Elder suspect’s wife
With one suspect dead and the other hindered in his ability to communicate, investigators are eager to speak to Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s wife,Katherine Russell, to see what she might know about incidents leading up to the bombings.
On Monday, her attorney said she learned of her husband’s alleged involvement through news accounts.
“She knew nothing about it at any time,” Amato DeLuca said in response to questions about whether Russell knew of plans to attack the marathon.
Tsarnaev stayed home and cared for the couple’s 2-year-old daughter while his wife worked long hours as a home-care aide, according to DeLuca.
The family is devastated, the attorney said.
“They’re very distraught. They’re upset. Their lives have been unalterably changed. They’re upset because of what happened, the people that were injured, that were killed. It’s an awful, terrible thing,” he said. “And of course (for) Katy, it’s even worse because what she lost — her husband and the father of her daughter.”
Police chief: The carnage could have been worse
In the tumultuous days after the bombings, the Tsarnaev brothers allegedly killed a university police officer, led authorities on a harrowing chase and hurled explosives at police, authorities said. Another officer, seriously wounded in a firefight with the suspects, was recovering Monday, Davis said.
The brothers — armed with handguns and explosives — apparently were planning another attack before a shootout with police disrupted their efforts, Davis said.
In runners’ tent and ER, a rush to save limbs — and lives
“I believe that the only reason that someone would have those in their possession was to further attack people and cause more death and destruction,” Davis said on CNN’s “Starting Point” Monday.
Authorities believe the brothers bought bomb components locally but think that their guns came from elsewhere, another federal law enforcement official said. The official, who was not authorized to publicly discuss the case, said authorities are trying to trace the guns.
Investigators are also trying to determine whether anyone else was involved in the bombings.
But Davis, speaking Sunday to CNN’s Don Lemon, said that he was confident that the brothers were “the two major actors in the violence that occurred.”
“I told the people of Boston that they can rest easily, that the two people who were committing these vicious attacks are either dead or arrested, and I still believe that,” the police chief said.
Details on shootout
The wild shootout that prompted the dramatic lockdown of the Boston area Friday began after a single officer gave chase after encountering the stolen car the brothers allegedly were driving,Watertown police Chief Edward Deveau told CNN’s Wolf Blizter on Saturday.
According to Deveau, the brothers stepped out of the car and shot at the officer, who put his car in reverse to get away from the gunfire.
More officers arrived, sparking a firefight that lasted five to 10 minutes. More than 200 shots were fired, and one of the brothers threw explosives at police — including a pressure cooker bomb similar to the one used at the marathon, Deveau said.
Eventually, Tamerlan Tsarnaev emerged from cover and began walking toward officers, firing as he went, the chief said.
When he ran out of ammunition, officers tackled him and tried to handcuff him, Deveau said Saturday.
But then, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev came barreling at them in the stolen vehicle, the chief said. The officers scrambled out of the way, and the vehicle then ran over the older brother and dragged him for a short distance.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev also had explosives on his body, officials have said.
Clues about radicalization?
The Tsarnaev family hails from the Russian republic of Chechnya and fled the brutal wars there in the 1990s. The two brothers were born in Kyrgyzstan; Dzhokhar became a U.S. citizen in 2012, while Tamerlan was a legal U.S. resident.
An FBI official said agents interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the request of the Russian government. The FBI said Russia claimed that he was a follower of radical Islam and that he had changed drastically since 2010.
But the Russian government’s request was vague, a U.S. official and a law enforcement source said Sunday. The lack of specifics limited how much the FBI was able to investigate Tamerlan, the law enforcement official said.
In August 2012, soon after returning from a visit to Russia, the elder Tsarnaev brother created a YouTube channel with links to a number of videos. Two videos under a category labeled “Terrorists” were deleted. It’s not clear when or by whom.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev attended prayers periodically at the Islamic Society of Boston’s mosque in Cambridge, a board member told CNN’s Brian Todd. In a statement issued Monday, the society said he twice interrupted sermons — once in November to express his opposition to celebrating any holiday as un-Islamic, and once in January when he tore into the preacher for citing civil rights leader Martin Luther King.
The second time, the congregation shouted back, “Leave now,” the statement said.
“After the sermon and the congregational prayer ended, a few volunteer leaders of the mosque sat down with the older suspect and gave him a clear choice: either he stops interrupting sermons and remains silent or he would not be welcomed,” it said. “While he continued to attend some of the congregational prayers after the January incident, he neither interrupted another sermon nor did he cause any other disturbances.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev “began coming intermittently to our congregational prayers on Friday over a year ago and occasionally to our daily prayers,” the statement read. “The younger suspect was rarely seen at the center, coming only occasionally for prayer.”
Opinion: Don’t blame immigration for bombings
Memorials and tributes
One of the victims, Krystle Campbell was memorialized Monday morning in a service at St. Joseph Catholic Church in Medford, Massachusetts. After the service, police officers lined the street in front of the church as other officers wearing dress uniforms saluted as the casket bearing her remains was taken from the church and loaded into a hearse.
Another memorial service was scheduled Monday night at Boston University for Lingzi Lu, a student from China. Lu was a graduate student in mathematics and statistics. Before coming to Boston, she won an academic scholarship to the Beijing Institute of Technology, where she received accolades for her math skills.
On Wednesday, Vice President Joe Biden will attend the memorial service for MIT police officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed by the Tsarnaev brothers.
A week after the marathon bombings, 50 people remain hospitalized, including two in critical condition, according to a CNN tally.
At least a dozen survivors have endured amputations.
Patients at Boston Medical Center have received visits from war veterans who have also suffered amputations. The vets, Dr. Jeffrey Kalish said, told patients that their lives aren’t over because they’ve lost limbs.
“We’ve seen really tremendous success and great attitudes,” he said.
Also Monday, Davis — the Boston police commissioner — said transit system police officer Richard Donohue, wounded in the firefight with the Tsarnaev brothers, was improving.
“He was in grave condition when he went to the hospital, so we’re very optimistic at this point in time, and our prayers are with him and his family,” he said.
