Boston bombing suspect charged

{{US officials have brought charges against Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzohkhar Tsarnaev while he lay in his hospital bed, a federal court official said.}}

“There has been a sealed complaint filed,” said Gary Wente, circuit executive for the US Courts for the First Circuit, who said that a magistrate judge was present when Tsarnaev was charged at his bed in Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital on Monday.

He was charged with using a weapon of mass destruction and one count of malicious destruction of property resulting in death.

Police declined to comment on media reports he was communicating with authorities in writing.

Officials say Tsarnaev and his older brother and suspected co-conspirator, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, set off the twin explosions at Monday’s marathon, killing three people and injuring more than 180 others.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remained unable to speak with a gunshot wound to the throat, and he was expected face separate state charges in the fatal shooting of a university police officer.

“There have been widely published reports that he is [communicating silently]. I wouldn’t dispute that, but I don’t have any specific information on that myself,” Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis told CNN on Sunday. “We’re very anxious to talk to him and the investigators will be doing that as soon as possible.”

The White House said that the surviving suspect in the Boston bombings would not be treated as an “enemy combatant” but would be tried through the US civilian justice system.

“He will not be treated as an enemy combatant,” Jay Carney, the Whitehouse spokesperson, said following calls from some Republicans for 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to be granted the same status as “War on Terror” detainees.

“We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice,” Carney said, arguing that US law prohibited a US citizen being tried in the military court system.

Carney said that since the September 11, 2001 attacks the US government had repeatedly and successfully used civilian courts to try terror suspects.

{wirestory}