Details emerge of injuries to Boston suspect

Accused Boston marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was badly injured when taken into custody by US federal agents in April, with multiple gunshot wounds, including one that had fractured his skull, according to unsealed court papers released today.

A trauma surgeon detailed the suspect’s condition in a hearing the day the Chechen immigrant, who was lying in a Boston hospital bed, was first charged over the bombing attacks that killed three people and wounded about 264.

Tsarnaev, now aged 20, is the survivor of two brothers accused of carrying out the worst mass-casualty attack on US soil since the 9/11 attacks. A pair of homemade pressure-cooker bombs exploded on April 15th at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, which was crowded with thousands of spectators, volunteers and athletes.

"He has multiple gunshot wounds, the most severe of which appears to have entered through the left side inside of his mouth and exited the left face, lower face. This was a high-powered injury that has resulted in skull-base fracture," Dr Stephen Ray Odom of Beth Israel Medical Center testified on April 22nd, according to court papers unsealed late Monday.

Tsarnaev was arrested on April 19th, four days after the bombing attack, at the conclusion of a day-long lockdown of most of the Boston area that began when he and his older brother allegedly killed a police officer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, carjacked a man and engaged in a gunbattle in the suburb of Watertown that ended with 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev dead and Dzhokhar on the run.

Police found the younger Tsarnaev hiding in a boat in a backyard.

Tsarnaev also sustained multiple wounds to his legs and arm but was alert and aware of his surroundings, Odom said.

“He definitely knows where he is,” Odom said. “He knows that he has had multiple procedures, but I’m not sure how aware he is of the specifics. He knows that he has an injury to the neck and to the hand.”

When Tsarnaev appeared in court in Boston last month to plead not guilty to charges that carry the threat of the death penalty, his face appeared swollen and his left arm was in a cast.

Tsarnaev is currently being held at a prison medical centre in Fort Devens, Massachusetts, west of Boston, to where he was moved on April 26 after a week at Beth Israel Deaconness Medical Center, a hospital that at the time was also treating many of his alleged victims.

The three people who died in the bombing were 29-year-old restaurant manager Krystle Campbell, graduate student Lingzi Lu (23) and eight-year-old Martin Richard.

MIT police officer Collier was killed three days later, according to the indictment.

Reuters