11 prosecution witnesses questioned at Tsarnaev's trial

On March 5, at the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused of committing a terror act during the Boston Marathon in April 2013, 11 witnesses for prosecution were questioned. Two of them said that they had never seen him before; and one recollected his brother Tamerlan.

"I remember a loud explosion, white smoke and people screaming. I ran toward the blast and heard the second explosion behind. I turned around – there was chaos there," Fatima Tlisova, a journalist of the "Voice of America", who was broadcasting live from the courtroom, has quoted in her Twitter an evidence of a Boston policeman, who testified as a witness.

Two of the witnesses said they had never seen Dzhokhar Tsarnaev before. At the same time, the witness Jeffrey Bowman recognized Tamerlan Tsarnaev. He said, according to Tlisova, "that he had described to the police a tall sportive guy in sunglasses with a black backpack, who pushed him in the area of the finish," "I recognized him immediately, when I saw him on TV; and I was very happy that they found him."

The defence objected to the use of evidence about witnesses' past life, such as participation in wars in Iraq and other Muslim countries, arguing that it "deprives Tsarnaev, a Muslim immigrant, of the right to a fair trial." The judge has upheld this motion. "I don't want to hear the words Iraq or Afghanistan in witnesses' stories, since it has nothing to do with the trial," Tlisova has quoted the judge in her Twitter.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on January 5, in Boston, the court started consideration on merits in the case against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Its first phase included the selection of jurors. The jury (12 core members and six alternates) included ten women and eight men. The first court session in the case against Johar Tsarnaev was started on March 4. At the court session, the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's advocates admitted his involvement in organization of the terror act.

The next court session will be held on March 9.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.