Officials
have said Tsarnaev, 19, and his older brother set off the twin
explosions at last week's race that killed three people and wounded more
than 180. His brother, Tamerlan, 26, died Friday after a fierce
gunbattle with police.
Tsarnaev was listed in serious but
stable condition at Beth Israel Deaconess Hospital, unable to speak
because of a gunshot wound to the throat.
The
charges represented a decision by the Obama administration to prosecute
him in the federal court system instead of trying him as an enemy
combatant in front of a military tribunal. Under the military system,
defendants are not afforded some of the usual US constitutional
protections.
Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen from
Russia who has lived in the United States for about a decade, is a
naturalised US citizen, and under US law, American citizens cannot be
tried by military tribunals, White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
Carney
said that since the September 11 attacks, the federal court system has
been used to convict and incarcerate hundreds of terrorists.
Tsarnaev
was charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass
destruction against persons and property, resulting in death.
He is also likely to face state charges in connection with the shooting death of an MIT police officer.
Seven
days after the bombings, Boston was bustling Monday, with runners
hitting the pavement, children walking to school and enough cars
clogging the streets to make the morning commute feel almost back to
normal.
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick
asked residents to observe a moment of silence at 2.50pm Monday (local
time), the time the first of the two bombs exploded near the finish
line. Bells were expected to toll across the city and state after the
minute-long tribute to the victims.
Also,
hundreds of family and friends packed a church in Medford for the
funeral of bombing victim Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant
worker. A memorial service was scheduled for Monday night at Boston
University for 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China.
Fifty-one victims remained hospitalised, three of them in critical condition.
At
the Snowden International School on Newbury Street, a high school set
just a block from the bombing site, jittery parents dropped off children
as teachers - some of whom had run in the race - greeted each other
with hugs.
Carlotta Martin of Boston said that leaving her kids at school has been the hardest part of getting back to normal.
"We're
right in the middle of things," Martin said outside the school as her
children, 17-year-old twins and a 15-year-old, walked in, glancing at
the police barricades a few yards from the school's front door.
"I'm nervous. Hopefully, this stuff is over," she continued. "I told my daughter to text me so I know everything's OK."
The city was also beginning to reopen sections of the six-block area around the bombing site.
Senator
Dan Coats of Indiana, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee,
said the surviving brother's throat wound raised questions about when he
will be able to talk again, if ever.
The wound
"doesn't mean he can't communicate, but right now I think he's in a
condition where we can't get any information from him at all," Coats
told ABC's "This Week."
It was not clear whether Tsarnaev was shot by police or inflicted the wound himself.
After
an intense all-day manhunt that brought the Boston area to a
near-standstill, he was captured Friday night (Saturday NZT), wounded
and bloody, after he was discovered hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a
Watertown backyard.
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