Main » 2013 » July » 13 » Cambridge teen’s terror hearing postponed (ACLU blasts FBI’s ‘dragnet’ tactics)
2:47:56 PM
Cambridge teen’s terror hearing postponed (ACLU blasts FBI’s ‘dragnet’ tactics)
 
An ACLU board member who filed a court affidavit supporting Robel Phillipos, the friend of accused marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev charged with lying to investigators, is outraged about what she called a "dragnet”the FBI has been conducting of the pair’s classmates at Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School.
 
"It seems like almost all of the class of 2011 has been contacted in one way or another by the FBI,” said Nancy Ryan, who knows Phillipos’ mother. "We’ve been making sure that anyone that we hear about knows that they have the right to have a lawyer.
 
”Ryan, a former board president of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts, said she’s heard about graduates being pulled out of college classrooms for questioning and called to testify before grand juries.
 
FBI Boston spokesman Greg Comcowich said the interviews are standard practice, and that investigators only have to advise an interviewee of the right to an attorney if he or she is in custody — and everyone volunteered to talk.
 
"We have conducted those interviews so we can put together the best picture of what happened before and after the tragic events of April 15,” Comcowich told the Herald.
 
Phillipos was due to appear in federal court July 12, for a probable cause hearing, but it was postponed until Aug. 12. Prosecutors say Phillipos, who was ordered to home confinement, initially lied to investigators about visiting Tsarnaev’s UMass Dartmouth dorm three days after the bombing, but later admitted he visited the room with two other classmates,Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov.
 
Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov are charged with obstruction of justice for disposing of the bag, which was found in a New Bedford landfill. -
 
By Jack Encarnacao
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