NEW YORK, April 15 (RIA Novosti) – Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused Boston Marathon bomber, awaits trial under conditions commonly applied to terrorists, the New York Times reported Tuesday.
The publication described in detail Tsarnaev’s isolation at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Massachusetts, where he is being held under “special administrative restrictions reserved for terrorism suspects.”
The Times said he is walled off from most social interactions, with his only visitors being “his legal team, a mental health consultant and his immediate family.” Letters and phone calls – a surrogate of human contact – are limited to one per week and only to his family. His grim surroundings have no television and no radio, and he is allowed only rare strolls to a single small enclosed space.
This harsh segregation has been criticized by Tsarnaev’s legal team and civil liberties advocates.
“The American Civil Liberties Union opposes aspects of special administrative measures, and its Massachusetts branch unsuccessfully asked the court to hear its arguments,” the paper stated.
These tough conditions are compounded by the questionable speed of legal proceedings, with the “defense assembling scorched-earth evidence,” the Times reported.
Tsarnaev’s legal team of experts met with him on 80 of his first 162 days in confinement. Regardless of the massive effort channeled into his legal defense, the team has so far failed to dissuade the prosecution. With Tsarnaev’s trial tentatively scheduled for November, the most recent defense strategy has been to present his actions as forced.
Three people were killed and over 260 wounded after two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 last year. The suspects in the blast, brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, were quickly identified following the release of surveillance camera footage.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a gunfight with police in the days following the bomb attack. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, tried to flee the city, but was wounded and later arrested. Tsarnaev faces 30 federal charges, and so far has pleaded not guilty.
