Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev made his first appearance before a judge on Monday, while still being handcuffed to a hospital bed at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, the New York Post and NBC News reported.
A magistrate was in Tsarnaev's room at the hospital for his initial court appearance, law enforcement sources said. He was charged with "conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in the U.S. resulting in death," the U.S. Attorney's Office for Massachusetts said.
Tsarnaev is under heavy medication, following his arrest Friday night in Watertown, apparently attempting to kill himself by shooting himself in the throat after a botched suicide attempt that has left him unable to speak, news reports said.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Tsarnaev will face trial in a civilian federal court, ending speculation that the accused bomber could be prosecuted by a military tribunal.
Tsarnaev, "will not be treated as an enemy combatant," but will be processed "through our civilian system of justice," Carney told reporters on Monday.
"Under U.S. law, citizens cannot be tried in military commissions," Carney also said.
The accused bomber has been communicating in writing with interrogators, questioning him without Miranda warnings against self-incrimination, news reports said.
Carney also said it is clear that the FBI followed up on information it received about Tsarnaev. He says the FBI interviewed him and his relatives and did not find domestic or foreign terrorism activity before the bombings last Monday.
The Russian FSB intelligence security service (formerly the KGB) told the FBI in early 2011 about information pertaining to Tsarnaev that Tamerlan was a follower of radical Islam. The FBI says it conducted interviews and provided the results in the summer of 2011.
Questions persist about whether Tamerlan Tsarnaev received jihadi training while back in Dagestan for a trip there last year. There is a concern that the two brothers may have been part of a larger cell abroad. Dagestan is seen as a seedbed for radical Islam, a nasty scourge that Russia has been fighting for nearly two decades.
