Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s mother is praying for him and leaving “everything’s in God’s hands,” a supporter said outside court after the suspect’s first public appearance in 17 months.

“She’s a very nice woman. Right now she’s only asking all of us to pray. She trusts God. She says everything’s in God’s hands right now,” said Elena Teyer, who identified herself as the mother-in-law of a man shot to death last year during an interview with the FBI. “It’s a very hard feeling for a mother when you can’t help your own child. You feel hopeless.”

Teyer said she is in regular contact with Tsarnaev’s mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, whose whereabouts are unknown and who faces an outstanding warrant for her arrest for shoplifting at Lord & Taylor in Natick. Teyer said she highly doubts Tsarnaeva will return to the States for her son’s trial when it begins Jan. 5.

Tsarnaev is charged in a 30-count indictment with using weapons of mass destruction — two homemade pressure-cooker bombs packed with shrapnel — to murder two women and a young boy and maim and disfigure 260 others at the finish line of the April 15, 2013, marathon. He is further accused of executing MIT Police Officer Sean Collier on April 18, 2013, in a bid to steal his service weapon after the FBI went public with photos of him and his brother, Tamerlan, as their suspects. Tamerlan died a short time later in a firefight with police in Watertown.

He appeared at U.S. District Court in Boston for a brief pretrial hearing today.

During the hearing, Teyer burst out in Russian, and was booted from the courtroom.

Outside the courthouse, she translated the outburst.

“I said in court, ‘Dzhokhar, you have a lot of supporters. We pray for you. We’re here for you, Dzhokar. We know you’re innocent. Be strong, son.’ “

Tsarnaev, 21, whose hands were being cuffed behind his back by U.S. Marshals at the time, hung his head and did not acknowledge Teyer as he was led away.

Tsarnaev was whisked into the courthouse before dawn under a police escort.

He sported a black sweater and slacks in court, had long, shaggy hair and a slight beard.

When Judge George A. O’Toole Jr. asked if he was happy with his defense team, Tsarnaev said “Very much so.”

Marc Fucarile, who lost his right leg in the terrorist attack, addressed the media as he left the 30-minute hearing.

Asked by the Herald if he was glad the initial shock of seeing Tsarnaev face to face was over, Fucarile said after a thoughtful pause, “I’m glad I’ve had all the support and help I’ve had along the way. The FBI’s doing a great job, the Boston police, first responders that day … If it wasn’t for them, none of us would be around.”

Fucarile brushed past a half-dozen protesters peacefully holding signs in support of Tsarnaev, later telling reporters. “Everybody’s welcome to their opinion. The facts will come out and the evidence. That’s all.

“There’s supporters for him and supporters for us,” he said, “and we’ve had a great amount of support.”

Teyer also addressed the media outside the courthouse, claiming her son, Ibragim Todashev, was murdered by the feds to stop him from being a character witness at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial.

“They went to Florida specifically to kill him,” Teyer said, adding she had come from her home in Savannah, Ga., to voice her support for the suspected Chechen terrorist.

Todashev, 27, a mixed martial arts fighter, was fatally shot by an FBI agent he lunged at on May 22, 2013, allegedly after confessing he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev committed a triple homicide in Waltham on Sept. 11, 2011.

Teyer said the feds’ contention isn’t true, and that her son-in-law was in Orlando, Fla., to visit family.

“He did not want to die. He did not want to commit suicide. He was trying to leave that room and they shot him three times to stop him because he knew too much,” she said, trembling with emotion. “He could have been a good support for defense for Dzhokhar. He is not here now. I know what he would say: ‘They were not radical, they were not crazy men. They were nice and good boys,’ ” she said of Tsarnaev and his brother.

“He knows that family so well,” she said. “He knows those boys.”

Teyer, 45, says she is a retired U.S. Army pharmacy technician and the mother of Todashev’s widow, Reni Manukyan.

If convicted, Tsarnaev could face the federal death penalty.

Developing…