(CN) - Three 19-year-olds who allegedly interfered with the FBI's investigation of the Boston Marathon bombing face federal charges, the government said Wednesday.
Prosecutors say Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov conspired to destroy, conceal or cover up a laptop computer and backpack full of fireworks belonging to the bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The pair, both 19 and residents of New Bedford, Mass., are charged in a criminal complaint with conspiracy to obstruct justice. They are both Kazakhstan nationals who entered the United States on student visas.
Robel Phillipos, 19, of Cambridge, Mass., is charged in a separate complaint with willfully making materially false statements to federal law-enforcement officials during a terrorism investigation.
Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov face a maximum sentence of five years in prison and $250,000 fine. Phillipos, a U.S. citizen, faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Three died and more than 200 were injured on April 15 after Dzokhar Tsarnaev and his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan allegedly set off two improvised explosive devices near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Tamerlan was killed by police in the ensuing manhunt, while Dzokhar was charged last week with using a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property within the United States resulting in death, as well as one count of malicious destruction of property by means of an explosive device resulting in death.
He faces the death penalty or a life sentence if convicted. Tsarnaev, an ethnic Chechen, arrived in the United States with his family over a decade ago as a refugee from Kyrgyzstan.
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