Boston bomber friend released on bail

BOSTON, Massachusetts: A 19year- old friend of accused Boston bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was ordered free on US$ 100,000 bail Monday as he awaits trial for allegedly lying to investigators probing the attack.

Robel Phillipos, whose family emigrated from Ethiopia, was placed under house arrest, where he will be under the custody of his mother.

He must also wear an electronic monitoring bracelet.

He was charged last week with lying to the authorities by denying that he had joined two Kazakh friends in Tsarnaev’s college dorm room when Tsarnaev was on the run from police after the April 15 bombing of the Boston Marathon.

The three young men are accused of going to the missing Tsarnaev’s room, where the Kazakhs — Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev — allegedly took his backpack and laptop computer.

The teen came to his hearing Monday in an orange jail uniform, his feet shackled. Under the terms of his house arrest, he will not be allowed out except to meet with his lawyer or for medical visits, Judge Marianne Bowler said. — AFP CHICAGO: Three men have been arrested in the case of three young women who were kidnapped several years ago and found alive on Monday, police in the Midwestern US city of Cleveland said.

“The Cleveland Division of Police confirms that there are now three suspects under arrest. All three are Hispanic males, ages 50, 52 and 54,” it said on its official Facebook account.

The three women’s nightmare ended when Amanda Berry, kidnapped 10 years ago at the age of 16, managed to escape the house with the help of a bystander and call police.

A panicked Berry told an emergency dispatcher that the man who had held her captive was named Ariel Castro, and media identified those arrested as Castro and two of his brothers. — AFP