A witness for the prosecution in the case gainst Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is prepared to testify against the suspect and has also brought new information to light. According to this new witness, Tsarnaev was aware that his older brother had been involved in a triple slaying that took place in 2011.
Prosecutors have included this new information in a new filing.
Defense attorneys now seek several new items from prosecutors. They have requested evidence linking Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Dzhokhar’s brother, to the gruesome slayings in Waltham, Massachusetts. Authorities found the bodies of the victims of the 2011 slayings with their throats slit and sprinkled with marijuana.
“Simply put, information and evidence tending to show that Tamerlan Tsarnaev participated in a triple homicide in 2011.”
defense lawyers said in the filing they handed in on Friday.
“The information depicting the brutality of those murders, is critical to the defense case in mitigation.”
they added.
The evidence is supposed to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that Tamerlan had a decisive role in both offenses:
“Such evidence would tend to corroborate Tamerlan’s dominant role in the charged offenses and would place the brothers’ respective personal characteristics and relative culpability into stark relief.”
lawyers said.
Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty in the charges brought against him. The 2013 bombings resulted in the deaths of three people, while 260 others were injured. Legal experts have suggested that his defensive team might attempt to argue that the defendant fell under the influence of Tamerlan, his murderous late brother.
Apparently, even the government has admitted that the evidence connecting his older brother to the Waltham slayings might be relevant, especially if Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was aware of his brother’s role in the killings.
Prosecutors had previously refused to provide additional information on the Waltham case, explaining that such information would only jeopardize their investigation. Another witness attessed to Tamerlan’s involvement in those unsolved killings, however, both Tamerlan and the witness, Ibragim Todashev, died, the former during his Florida questioning and the latter during a gun battle with police officers after the bombing.
