Azamat Tazhayakov could be a fool. A dupe. Or as his defense attorneys have it, a “good kid.” A “mama’s boy.” Or he could be a true believer like his friend Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, hindering the investigation not solely out of loyalty to his friend, but because he believed in the same cause — that of jihad and Islam — that motivated Tsarnaev to commit mass murder at the Boston Marathon. But this question was evidently not broached at his trial, as illuminating as it may have been of Tazhayakov’s motives and actions. To have investigated such questions would have been “Islamophobic.”
“Friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect found guilty,” by Richard A. Serrano, Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2014 (thanks to Darcy):
A friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was convicted Monday of hindering the FBI investigation into the April 2013 blast by hiding Tsarnaev’s backpack from authorities.
Azamat Tazhayakov, convicted in federal court on Boston, now faces up to 20 years in prison and becomes the first of three Tsarnaev friends to be tried in cases spawned from the marathon bombings. He was acquitted of separate charges of trying to dispose of Tsarnaev’s laptop computer.
Jurors reached the split verdict after prosecutors accused Tazhayakov of deliberately removing the backpack from Tsarnaev’s college dorm room after Tsarnaev sent him computer messages telling him to dispose of some of his belongings. Prosecutors also noted that after the bombings, Tazhayakov repeatedly followed the bombing case on his computer, even as federal agents were disparately trying to locate Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The backpack contained fireworks, a jar of Vaseline, a thumb drive and other items, and Tazhayakov and a friend took it to their apartment in nearby New Bedford, Mass.
But defense lawyers for Tazhayakov said it was the other friend who actually removed the backpack and that Tazhayakov were merely there with him in the Tsarnaev dorm room. The defense attorneys described Tazhayakov as a “good kid” and a “mama’s boy.”…
Yes. No doubt a decent fellow.