Home found for detained friend of accused Boston bomber -lawyer

Reuters

BOSTON (Reuters) - A lawyer for a friend of the accused Boston Marathon bomber who has been in U.S. custody since he was arrested in late May and charged with lying to investigators said on Friday he has found a place for the man to live ahead of trial, clearing the way for the suspect's possible release. At a pre-trial hearing early this month, a lawyer for Kyrgyzstan citizen Khairullozhon Matanov declined to argue for pretrial release, saying that his client had lost his job and apartment as a result of his arrest. The lawyer, Edward Hayden, in an email on Friday said he had found an apartment for Matanov, who lived in Quincy, Massachusetts, and worked as a cab driver prior to his May 30 arrest. That clears a roadblock that had previously prevented Hayden from seeking to have Matanov released ahead of trial. Court officials on Thursday had set a Monday hearing on the matter. At the man's first court appearance earlier this month, prosecutors had argued that Matanov, who immigrated to the United States in 2010 and has been granted asylum, was not suitable for pretrial release because he had no family ties in the country and owned no property. He has pleaded not guilty to one criminal count of destroying records and three counts of lying to officials in a terrorism investigation. Matanov is not charged with taking part in the April 2013 attack that killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Accused bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 20, is being held in a federal prison west of Boston awaiting trial on charges that carry the threat of execution if he is convicted. Three other friends of Tsarnaev are also awaiting trial on charges of hampering the investigation into the deadly bombing. Two of those are Kazakh men who arrived in the United States as exchange students but were found to have violated the terms of their visas by dropping out of school and are being kept in federal custody. The third is a U.S. citizen who lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and is out on bond. (Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Eric Beech)