Boston Bombing Suspect Arrested.

At roughly the time the doors opened for Rihanna's concert in Tampa, Florida Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was discovered hiding a boat in the backyard of a house in Watertown, Massachusetts. It appears that Tsarnaev had been hiding in that location since escaping from the police during the gun battle in which his older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed. There are obvious question to be asked about why that location was amongst the last to be searched and why it was searched at the time it was. However it appears that Tsarnaev himself chose that time by exposing his location to neighbours and every search has got start somewhere and end somewhere.

Beyond that though the police's conduct was exemplary. Despite coming under fire from the suspect rather then storming in all guns blazing they surrounded the boat and attempted to negotiate with him. A part of this negotiation was extensive use of stun grenades which is a standard tactic intended to disorientate the suspect and basically exhaust them. After close to two hours of negotiation it became clear that Tsarnaev had been wounded in the gun battle that killed his brother and would likely die of those injuries before giving himself up. So the police took the tough decision to assault the boat shooting Tsarnaev with a shot-gun in the process. A shot-gun is of course one of the least lethal weapons in a SWAT team's arsenal. Once he'd been disarmed Tsarnaev was given immediate medical attention at the scene before being transferred to the Beth Israel hospital in Boston where he is said to be in serious but stable condition under armed guard.

The fact that Tsarnaev was hiding in a boat was clearly a reference to Rihanna's fanbase known as "The Navy." It was also intended to be a reference to the 2009 hijacking of the Maersk Alabama cargo ship by Somali pirates. This ended with the pirates being killed by US Navy SEALs after they had abandoned the ship and were holding their hostages in a small life boat similar in size to the boat Tsarnaev was hiding in. This was obviously intended to promote discussion about Somalia, piracy and the wider east African region which in includes controversial nations such as the Sudans, Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda and by extension the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and the Central African Republic (CAR). The discussion of Navy SEALs also touches on the killing of Osama bin Laden and is just another little Rihanna reference.

The fact that the boat had been wrapped in plastic to protect it from the winter weather was a reference to Judaism and Israel. Specifically a very extreme sect of Juadism whose priests are forbidden from coming in contact with the dead even to the extent that they're not allowed to walk through graveyards. This presents quite a problem when they try and fly in or out of Israel's Ben Gurion airport in Tel Aviv because it is surrounded by I think four cemeteries. They have though come up with the quite bizarre solution of wrapping themselves up in giant plastic bags as they sit in their aeroplane seats. Pictures of one such priest doing this went viral last week after some snapped a picture and uploaded it to the Internet proving that even Orthodox Jews think those guys are a bit odd.

I think even before Tsarnaev arrived at the hospital a debate started about his legal rights as a prisoner with FBI officials announcing that he had been and will be questioned without his Miranda rights (5th Amendment US Constitution basically) citing a public-safety exemption. Today Republican Senators called for Tsarnaev to be deemed a irregular combatant which basically means he has no rights at all and is a designation used for prisoners in Guantanamo Bay. This obviously intended to promote discussion to the US' responses to the 9/11 attacks in terms of things like Guantanamo Bay and the Patriot Act(s). The reference to irregular combatants has a specific resonance in terms of Syria where those who support the Saudi and Qatari Irregular Army (SQIA) who are irregular combatants have long attempted to argue that there is anything that Syria forces are not allowed to do them. Legally they're quite wrong.

The Miranda issue particularly worries me but not because I have any great concern for Tsarnaev rights. In order to use a public safety exemption there needs to be a continuing threat to public safety - the arrest of a single member of a larger terrorist cell being a prime example. Although I think Tsarnaev is just a small part of a much wider conspiracy I don't think there will be much in the way of Court admissible evidence to support that nor do I think Tsarnaev's co-conspirators will be handing themselves in any time soon. Immediately after Tsarnaev's arrest state and federal officials announced that they considered the situation to be over and that there is no indication that Tsarnaev had any accomplices. Therefore it is questionable that they will meet the legal criteria needed for a public-safety exemption to Miranda. To me this looks like someone is already trying to help Tsarnaev escape prosecution. That will obviously cause public outrage leading to increased support for the post-9/11 measures such as the Patriot Act(s).

As for the irregular combatant issue I've always found that deeply stupid. For example in the discussion of Margaret Thatcher's time as UK Prime Minister I mentioned that she watched 10 Irish Republican Army (IRA) prisoners starve themselves to death. The reason those IRA prisoners were on hunger strike was in an effort to get themselves declared political prisoners rather then just common criminals as that would add credibility to their cause. Therefore I can't help but thinking that classing Tsarnaev as an irregular combatant will only add legitimacy to what ever grievance he is going to claim drove him to carry out the attacks.

That said though I don't think that Tsarnaev should be treated as a common criminal. For example providing there is at least prima facia evidence that he is actually the guy who has carried out the attacks I have no problem with investigators being given as long as they need to question him - I for one will be very interested in his feelings towards Rihanna. Obviously I think he should be treated humanely through out that questioning. As for the issue of legal counsel it's actually very common that people who have an attorney appointed to them because they cannot afford an attorney to discover that they've been appointed a really, really bad attorney.

I think those are all questions that can wait for a later date because Tsarnaev is clearly not in a position to be interviewed with or without a lawyer present. That could raise problems with the amount of time Tsarnaev can be held before trial although I should point out that in the UK it doesn't because if a person under arrest is taken to hospital the so-called 'custody clock' stops which is just one of the dirty tricks the police can use to extend a persons stay in custody. However if it is a problem in the Tsarnaev case the solutions quite simple - you just de-arrest him while he is in hospital and re-arrest him when he is fit enough to be interviewed although that could further aid his defence depending on the Judge.

21:15 on 20/4/13.

Edited at around 00:05 on 21/4/13 to add;

Although I don't want to prejudice the discussion about Miranda rights with the suspect captured I consider my role in this to be over. So while I will continue to keep an eye on things I'm going to try and focus on getting back to my normal routine. As a result I'm going to stick a load of laundry on and go to bed.

Before that though the indications are that a public defender (attorney) is going to be appointed to Tsarnaev. This seems a sensible step because as Obama learnt from his failure to close down Guantanamo Bay it is a lot easier to move someone from the civilian legal system to the military one then it is to move someone from the military system to the civilian one.

Also an unnamed federal source is saying that Tsarnaev has suffered a throat injury that will prevent him from talking. This may be true after all shot-gun pellets are rarely good for the vocal cords. However I should point out that within both the West explosion and the current small fire at a UK nuclear plant there is quite a technical discussion about town planning/zoning. The UK is currently reforming it's planning laws so you get the feeling that certain people were hoping that the two incidents would trigger me into writing that dissertation for my uncompleted BA in Urban Geography. As you may have noticed I'm not talking.

(Originally Posted on 20/4/13)