ChiefsPlanet - News Reports: 3 New Suspects Arrested in Connection With Boston Bombings

Reports: 3 New Suspects Arrested in Connection With Boston Bombings

Two college students will reportedly be charged with aiding the alleged bombers; another will be charged with making false statements.
—By Andy Kroll | Wed May. 1, 2013 9:16 AM PDT

Federal authorities have arrested three additional suspects in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings, according to the Boston Police Department. The suspects are college students, and they've been in custody for more than a week, according to NBC News.

News outlets are reporting that the three students are friends with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who faces charges of using a weapon of mass destruction at the marathon that killed three people and injured hundreds more. Two of the three students are Kazakh and had previously been detained by officials with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, according to NBC News. Federal authorities allege that these two friends of Tsarnaev's removed evidence from Tsarnaev's dorm room at the University of

Massachusetts–Dartmouth after the April 15 bombing. The Washington Post reports that the three suspects dumped material into a nearby landfill after the bombing.

The two Kazakh men deny wrongdoing, a lawyer who represents one of them told the Associated Press. The third suspect, an American citizen, is accused of making false statements, according to Boston CBS affiliate WBZ.

Tsarnaev and his older brother, Tamerlan, are suspected of carrying out the dual bombings near the finish line of the Boston Marathon. Days later, the Tsarnaev brothers killed a Massachusetts Institute of Technology campus police officer before Tamerlan was killed in a confrontation with police. Dzhokhar was later captured by police and taken into custody.

The charges made against the three students remained under seal as of midday Monday, according to CBS News. CBS also reported that the suspects were arrested outside Boston.

The full extent of the three students' connection to the bombings, if any, is unclear. The Boston Police Department tweeted that it would release more details about the students later on Monday. Police officials say there is currently no threat to the public.

This post is being continuously updated.