CNN has reported that, according to the hospitalised surviving younger sibling, Tamerlan Tsarnaev ‘wanted to defend Islam from attack’.
The judge who met Tsarnaev in his hospital bed and read the charges told reporters he seemed “alert, mentally competent and lucid.”
The nineteen-year-old, who is under police guard in a Boston hospital said that ‘no international terrorist groups were behind them.’
The Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, where Tsarnaev is being treated and interviewed (image via Getty)
However, another government source told The Mirror that they believed the brothers displayed advanced bomb-making skills that indicated they weren’t working alone.
“We have no doubt the brothers were not acting alone. The devices used to detonate the two bombs were highly sophisticated and not the kind of thing people learn from Google.” the source said, as police attempt to gather more evidence to back up their theory.
“They were too advanced. Someone gave the brothers the skills and it is now our job to find out just who they were. Agents think the sleeper cell has up to a dozen members and has been waiting several years for their day to come.”
Tsarnaev, a US citizen originally from Kyrgyzstan, has been charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction resulting in death. Three people were killed last week at the finish line of the Boston marathon, with 180 injured.
