On Wednesday, a federal judge indicated that he might be loosening oversight of prison meetings between alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his sisters. Tsarnaev's defense team have said that the meetings are key to understanding the dynamics of the Tsarnaev family, The Wall Street Journal said.
The 20 year-old has been accused of planting two bombs together with his late brother Tamerlan at the finish line of the Boston Marathon last year. The older Tsarnaev have died days after the bombing in a firefight with police. The younger one is currently detained in a federal prison hospital outside Boston and is under tight restrictions. One of them is having a Federal Bureau of Investigation agent on site during his meeting with his two sisters. Tsarnaev has submitted not guilty pleas to all charges filed against him, WSJ said.
The newspaper said that Tsarnaev's defense team suggested that the defendant was under the influence of his older brother.
Prosecutors have argued that the easing of the restrictions imposed on Tsarnaev while in federal detention was necessary for security reasons, and that the defense requested that the restrictions be dropped in a response to Tsarnaev at one time making a statement to his own detriment and was overheard by an FBI agent.
Judge George A. O'Toole said that although there are no potentially large safety and security issues that would occur, he recommended that the monitoring be lifted or have federal agents who are not on the prosecution team monitor Tsarnaev instead during the meetings. WSJ said O'Toole has given prosecutors more time to mull over his recommendations before making his final rule about the issue.
The newspaper said the hearing followed after the city of Boston commemorated the one-year anniversary of the bombings. The bombings purportedly done by the Tsarnaev brothers killed three and wounded over 260 people that day. Aside from the charges in relation to the bombings filed against Tsarnaev, he is also indicted for killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer during the search for him and his brother days after the bombings.
