Boston set to observe a moment of silence

Surviving bombing suspect unable to speak, awaits charges in hospital

Boston Marathon bombings suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev remained hospitalized and unable to speak on Monday with a gunshot wound to the throat, and the 19-year old was expected to be charged by federal authorities and face state charges in connection with the fatal shooting of a university police officer.

Seven days after the bombings, the city planned to mark the traumatic week with mournful silence and a return to its bustling commute.

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick has asked residents to observe a moment of silence at 2:50 pm on Monday, the time the first of the two bombs exploded near the finish line. Bells will ring across the city and the state after the minute-long tribute to the victims.

Many Boston residents are returning to their workplaces and schools for the first time since a dramatic week came to an even more dramatic end.

Authorities on Friday had made the unprecedented request that residents stay at home during the manhunt for suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. He was discovered that evening hiding in a boat covered by a tarp in suburban Watertown. His older brother Tamerlan was killed earlier during a getaway attempt.

"It's surreal," said Barbara Alton, as she walked her dog along Newbury Street. "But I feel like things are starting to get back to normal."

In another sign of progress, city officials said they are beginning the process of reopening to the public the six-block site around the bombing that killed three people and wounded more than 180. The announcement came on Sunday, a day when people could still watch investigators at the crime scene work in white jumpsuits.

Tsarnaev is likely to face state charges in connection with the fatal shooting of MIT police officer Sean Collier in Cambridge, said Stephanie Guyotte, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex District Attorney's office.

A private funeral was scheduled on Monday for Krystle Campbell, a 29-year-old restaurant worker killed in the blasts. A memorial service will be held that night at Boston University for 23-year-old Lu Lingzi, a graduate student from China.

City churches on Sunday paused to mourn the dead as the city's police commissioner said the two suspects had such a large cache of weapons that they were probably planning other attacks.

After the two brothers engaged in a gunbattle with police early Friday, authorities found many unexploded homemade bombs at the scene, along with more than 250 rounds of ammunition.

The stockpile was "as dangerous as it gets in urban policing", Boston Police Commissioner Ed Davis said. "We have reason to believe, based upon the evidence that was found at that scene - the explosions, the explosive ordnance that was unexploded and the firepower that they had - that they were going to attack other individuals," he told CBS.

Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev are ethnic Chechens from southern Russia. The motive for the bombings remained unclear.

Senator Dan Coats of Indiana, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the surviving brother's throat wound raised questions about when he will be able to talk again, if ever.

The wound "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", Coats said.

It was not clear whether Tsarnaev was shot by police or inflicted the wound himself.

Tsarnaev could be charged any day. The most serious charge available to federal prosecutors would be the use of a weapon of mass destruction to kill people, which carries a possible death sentence. Massachusetts does not have the death penalty.

(China Daily 04/23/2013 page12)