The court proceedings took place in a heavily guarded and packed courtroom.
19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who has been hospitalized since being captured in April, faces 30 federal charges, including “using a weapon of mass destruction to kill,” in connection to the April, 15, attack at the finish line of the Boston Marathon. The bombing left 3 people dead and wounded more than 260 others.
The Associated Press reports:
His arm in a cast and his face swollen, a blase-looking Dzhokhar Tsarnaev pleaded not guilty Wednesday in the Boston Marathon bombing in a seven-minute proceeding that marked his first appearance in public since his capture in mid-April.
As survivors of the bombing looked on, Tsarnaev, 19, gave a small, lopsided smile to his two sisters upon arriving in the courtroom. He appeared to have a jaw injury and there was swelling around his left eye and cheek.
Leaning into the microphone, he told a federal judge, “Not guilty” in his Russian accent and said it over and over as the charges were read. Then he was led away in handcuffs, making a kissing gesture toward his family with his lips.
The Russian immigrant and former college student looked much as he did in a photo widely circulated after his arrest, his hair curly and unkempt. Wearing an orange prison jumpsuit, he appeared nonchalant, almost bored, during the hearing.
Chief John DiFava, of the MIT Police Department, said that Tsarnaev looked “smug.” He said, “I didn’t see a lot of remorse. I didn’t see a lot of regret. It just seemed to me that if I was in that position, I would have been a lot more nervous, certainly scared … I just wanted to see him. I wanted to see the person that so coldly and callously killed four people, one of whom being an officer of mine.”
Read more:
On the Block Between the Two Explosions
I’m Watching the Events Unfold a Mile from Me: Boston in Lockdown, Suspect at Large
The Aftermath: What I Learned from the Boston Bombings