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| Boston bombings: Interrogation of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev | | | Boston: US media report that federal agents have begun questioning one of the two brothers suspected of bombing the Boston marathon on 15 April, killing three people and injuring 176 others. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been receiving treatment in hospital since 19 April, when he was captured. His brother, Tamerlan, was killed in a gunfight with police the previous day.
How is Dzhokhar Tsarnaev being questioned?
A special team of FBI counter-terrorism agents trained in interrogating "high-value" detainees has been sent to Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center to question Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
On the morning of 21 April, Boston Police Department Commissioner Ed Davis said Mr Tsarnaev had not yet been interrogated. He was reportedly unable to speak because of a gunshot wound to the throat.
However, later US media reports cited federal officials as saying Mr Tsarnaev had begun to respond to questions, mostly in writing. They did not say what he had been asked or had written.
The Obama administration has said it plans to question Mr Tsarnaev before giving him the so-called "Miranda" warning that he has the right to remain silent and have a lawyer present.
Why has he not been advised of his Miranda rights?
Justice department officials said that in an effort to "gain critical intelligence", they planned to question Mr Tsarnaev "extensively" before advising him of his rights.
The Miranda warning comes from a 1966 Supreme Court ruling that protects suspects from involuntarily incrimination. If prosecutors want to use at trial statements made by a defendant in custody, law enforcement officials must first have advised them of their rights.
However, the justice department officials said they planned to rely on a 1984 Supreme Court ruling, which created an exception allowing prosecutors to use statements made by a defendant prior to the Miranda warning in response to questions from law enforcement officials about an immediate threat to the public, such as a bomb.
A federal judge recently upheld the government's right to use such statements as direct evidence in the case of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, a Nigerian man who was sentenced to life in prison for trying to blow up a Detroit-bound flight on 25 December 2009. He confessed to a nurse and spoke freely to FBI agents before being read the Miranda warning.
Regardless of whether Mr Tsarnaev is advised of his rights, if he asks for a lawyer, questioning of him will have to stop.
Has anyone questioned that approach?
Legal rights advocates have expressed concern about the use of the "public safety" exception in this case. The executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union said every defendant was entitled to be read Miranda rights.
"The public safety exception should be read narrowly. It applies only when there is a continued threat to public safety and is not an open-ended exception to the Miranda rule," Anthony Romero said in a statement. "We must not waver from our tried-and-true justice system, even in the most difficult of times. Denial of rights is un-American and will only make it harder to obtain fair convictions."
The head of the Boston office of the Federal Public Defender Office, which represents suspects who cannot afford a lawyer, has said it will represent Mr Tsarnaev once charges are filed. Miriam Conrad said he needed a lawyer as soon as possible because there were "serious issues regarding possible interrogation".
Could Mr Tsarnaev be treated as an "enemy combatant"?
Several Republican politicians have urged the government to detain Mr Tsarnaev - a naturalised US citizen - as an "enemy combatant", which would give him the same status as those held at Guantanamo Bay. "The accused perpetrators of these acts were not common criminals attempting to profit from a criminal enterprise, but terrorists trying to injure, maim, and kill innocent Americans," Senators John McCain, Lindsey Graham and Kelly Ayotte, and Congressman Peter King said in a statement.
But Democratic Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Service Committee, warned there was "no legal basis for his detention as an enemy combatant". "I am not |
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