Katherine Russell investigated by police for suspected role in Boston Marathon bombings

(Photo: Lucas Jackson / Reuters)Law enforcement officials stand at the scene on Franklin St. as the search for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the surviving suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, comes to an end in Watertown, Massachusetts April 19, 2013.

Law enforcements officials released new information regarding Katherine Russell, the widow of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and her alleged role in the bombing attack. According to a report by ABC News, Russell is under "active investigation" and may be charged depending on the results of the investigation.

For now, spokespersons from the U.S. attorney's office and the FBI have stressed that a decision on whether to charge Russell has yet to be determined. Prosecutors, meanwhile, are focused on the ongoing trial of Russell's brother-in-law Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

Dzhokhar, the younger of the Tsarnaev brothers, is being tried for his alleged role back in April 2013 in the Boston Marathon bombings, where a pair of "pressure cooker bombs" exploded, killing three people and injuring several others. Following the attacks, a massive area-wide manhunt culminated in a shootout wherein Tamerlan was killed.

After Tamerlan was identified as a suspect in the bombings, Russell issued a statement through her attorney indicating that she would cooperate fully with the authorities and did not have any prior knowledge of the attacks. Russell then offered her condolences to the victims of the attacks.

Still, authorities continued their investigation on Russell and is currently suspected of assisting her husband, Tamerlan, in the purchase of five pressure cookers, two of which that may have been used in the bombings.

Brad Garrett, a consultant of ABC News and former FBI special agent, offered his take on the matter. "To live in a small apartment and buy five pressure cookers and have all those explosives obviously just does not make sense – something other than cooking was going on," he said, in this article at ABC News.

A law enforcement official not linked to the investigation theorizes that if found guilty, Russell could be charged for failing to notify authorities of an impending attack and the misprision of a felony.

 

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