Boston bombing suspect may never be able to speak

Updated

Sorry, this video has expired Video: Correspondent Lisa Millar reports from Boston (ABC News)

The 19-year-old suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings is reportedly awake and responding in writing to questions from authorities.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is unable to speak after being shot in the throat during a gunfight with police, and is currently in intensive care in a Boston hospital.

This morning America's ABC and NBC networks reported that he was responding in writing to questions from law enforcement officials.

Earlier Boston mayor Tom Menino said he feared authorities may never be able to question Tsarnaev because of the nature of his injuries.

The 19-year-old was captured after hiding in a boat in a backyard following a gunfight with police which killed his 26-year-old brother Tamerlan.

Tsarnaev is believed to have been shot in the throat and sustained tongue damage in the firefight, which Mr Menino said had left him in a "very serious" condition.

"We don't know if we'll ever be able to question the individual," Mr Menino told ABC America, without elaborating.

United States senator Dan Coats, a member of the Intelligence Committee, also told the network it was questionable whether Tsarnaev would be able to speak again.

"The information that we have is that there was a shot to the throat," he said.

"It doesn't mean he can't communicate, but right now I think he's in a condition where we can't get any information from him at all," he added.

"We are now reliably informed he has a gunshot wound, a very serious one, to his throat as well as other gunshot wounds to his leg, but it's the injury to his throat that has meant the special investigation, interrogation team that has been at the hospital waiting to speak to him means that they have not been able to have that communication. He's heavily sedated, not in a coma but heavily sedated. He's breathing through a tube and they describe his condition as extremely serious. North America correspondent Lisa Millar

The Chechen-born brothers are suspected of staging the twin bombing attacks on the Boston Marathon which killed three people and injured almost 180.

US attorney Carmen Ortiz, the federal prosecutor for the Boston area, is working on filing criminal charges, Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said.

Boston bombings timeline

Look back on some of the key developments in the story since the Boston Marathon bombings on April 15.

He said an announcement on the charges could come later today.

The most serious charge available to federal prosecutors is use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill people. It carries a possible death sentence.

The two brothers may have been readying for a second attack at the time of the shootout, Commissioner Davis said.

"We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene [of the gunfight], the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded, and the firepower that they had, that they were going to attack other individuals," Commissioner Davis told CBS.

Early indications were the brothers acted alone, Commissioner Davis and other officials said.

Investigators are still seeking a motive.

Tsarnaev will be defended by the Federal Public Defender Office, which had yet to issue any public statements on the case.

The two bombs used at the Boston Marathon finish line were made in pressure cookers and packed with ball bearings and nails.

Police say they found the same type of shrapnel in unexploded devices thrown by the Chechen brothers during Friday's gunfight.

"There is no doubt that they were made by these two guys," Commissioner Davis said.

Were warning signs missed?

House of Representatives Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul has written to the FBI and other officials asking why suspicions were not raised when Russia asked them to interview Tamerlan Tsarnaev two years ago.

Tamerlan posted militant Islamist videos on social media sites and made a six-month trip to Russia's volatile Caucasus region last year.

Much of what he did on the trip is still a mystery to US investigators.

Neighbours contacted by Reuters say he spent at least a few weeks in Dagestan, a predominantly Muslim region in the North Caucasus mountains where Islamist militants have long been a thorn in the side of governments in Moscow.

"I personally believe this man received training when he was over there and he radicalised," Mr McCaul, a Texas Republican, told CNN.

"If he was on the radar and they let him go, he's on the Russians' radar, why wasn't a flag put on him, some sort of customs flag?"

Republican senator Lindsey Graham says Tamerlan's behaviour should have raised eyebrows with authorities.

"The ball was dropped. I don't know if our laws are insufficient or the FBI failed," he said.

Asked overnight about lawmakers' concerns, the FBI said it had no further comment beyond an earlier statement when it said it "did not find any terrorism activity, domestic or foreign" after speaking to Tamerlan and checking his travel records and internet activity.

House Intelligence Committee chairman Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent, defended the agency, saying it had performed a "very thorough" review in 2011 but failed to receive further cooperation from Russia.

The FBI interview and an allegation of domestic abuse against a girlfriend raised concerns when Tamerlan applied for US citizenship last year.

The application was still under review when the bombings occurred.

ABC/Reuters

Topics: terrorism, unrest-conflict-and-war, crime, law-crime-and-justice, united-states

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