Friend of accused Boston bomber indicted

WASHINGTON— Afriend of accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaevwas indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday for allegedly lying seven times to the FBI about what happened to Tsarnaev’s laptop and backpack containing fireworks.

Robel Phillipos, of Cambridge, Mass., was charged with two counts of making false and misleading statements about an attempt by two friends to get rid of the evidence in the April attack that killed three.

If convicted, he faces up to 16 years in prison. He earlier was arrested along with the two Tsarnaev friends who had previously been indicted, but Phillipos was released on bail and house detention.

According to the indictment, the 19year- old lied to FBI agents after he was interviewed over a period of six days about what happened to several of Tsarnaev’s belongings taken from his dorm room at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

Federal officials think Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov placed the items in a dumpster after Tsarnaev encouraged them in a text message to go to his room and “take what’s there.” The backpack was later recovered from a local land fill. Thel aptop’s where abouts are not known.

Meanwhile, Boston Marathon organizers announced Thursday that next year’s event will have an additional 9,000 runners amid a groundswell of support and interest. Boosting the field size to 36,000 runners at the April 21 race would make for the second- largest turnout in its history.