In Russian Social Media, Glimpse of Students Accused of Hiding Boston Evidence

One of those charged, Dias Kadyrbayev, left, with the surviving suspect, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, in a photo from the social network VK.

This undated photo found on the VK page of Dias Kadyrbayev shows Kadyrbayev, right, with the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, left, at an unknown location.

On April 18, the day before Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured as a suspect in the bombings at the Boston Marathon, a friend from the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth posted photos of them together on VKontakte, the Russian social network.

The photos, posted under the account of Dias Kadyrbayev, a 19-year-old Kazakh, offer a glimpse into the relationship between Mr. Kadyrbayev and Mr. Tsarnaev, which began after they enrolled as freshmen in the fall of 2011.

They grew closer last year, the authorities said, and traveled to New York City with another friend â€" Azamat Tazhayakov, 19, who is also a citizen of Kazakhstan and a student at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth.

They posed with a group of friends in Times Square. Other photos posted on Mr. Kadyrbayev’s account show them sharing a meal and standing outside in front of a small fire.

Later on April 18, at 8:43 p.m., according to a federal complaint, Mr. Kadyrbayev sent Mr. Tsarnaev a text message after seeing the photos circulated by the F.B.I. of two men suspected in the bombings, which killed three people and injured more than 250 others.

Two of the men charged, Azamat Tazhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev, with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Times Square, in a photo from the social network VK.

In a text message, he told Mr. Tsarnaev that he looked like one of the suspects on television. According to the complaint, Mr. Tsarnaev’s return text messages included several things that Mr. Kadyrbayev interpreted as jokes, like “LOL,” “you better not text me” and “come to my room and take whatever you want!”

Not long after that exchange of text messages, the complaint said, Mr. Kadyrbayev and Mr. Tazhayakov, accompanied by a former high school classmate of Mr. Tsarnaev’s from Cambridge, Mass., took a backpack, fireworks and a laptop computer from Mr. Tsarnaev’s dorm room.

As my colleagues report, the two Kazakh students were taken into custody for possible student visa violations when police questioned them shortly after Mr. Tsarnaev was captured on April 19. (Mr. Tsarnaev’s brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who is also suspected in the bombings, died after a gunfight with police.)

On Wednesday, Mr. Kadyrbayev and Mr. Tazhayakov were arrested on federal charges of conspiring to obstruct justice and destroy evidence.

Lawyers for both men, who appeared in court Wednesday afternoon and waived bail, said that their clients had not known that Mr. Tsarnaev was involved in the bombings and that they were cooperating fully with investigators.

A third person, Robel Phillipos, 19, who had attended high school with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in Cambridge and briefly attended the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, was also arrested on Wednesday on charges of lying to investigators, the complaint said. He is accused of going to Mr. Tsarnaev’s dorm room with the two other suspects when the items were removed and then lying about it multiple times when questioned by investigators.

Mr. Phillipos, who lives with his mother in Cambridge, and Mr. Tsarnaev graduated in 2011 from Cambridge Rindge and Latin School. According to The Cambridge Chronicle, the local newspaper, he was also a member of a student leadership group in 2009.

Cambridge resident Robel Phillipos in 2009. He was a member of the Kids’ Council Youth Involvement Subcommittee twitter.com/cambridgechron…

â€" Cambridge Chronicle (@cambridgechron) May 1, 2013

Mr. Phillipos does not appear to have an active Facebook account, but he does have a YouTube channel under his name. In one video, in what appears to be an assignment for the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, he discusses the founder of the F. W. Woolworth Company, whose descendants provided financing for the school’s Charlton College of Business.

Robel Phillipos, 19, was charged with lying to federal law enforcement officials during an investigation of the bombing.

The complaint, combined with postings on social media accounts, offers a glimpse into the lives of the two young men from Kazakhstan and how they came to know Mr. Tsarnaev on the UMass Dartmouth in southern Massachusetts.

Details in the complaint suggest that Mr. Tsarnaev may have been closer to Mr. Kadyrbayev, who is accused of throwing Mr. Tsarnaev’s backpack into the trash Thursday evening after it was retrieved from the dorm room. According to the complaint, he had visited Mr. Tsarnaev at his family’s home in Cambridge over the last year, and Mr. Tsarnaev had spent a lot of time at Mr. Kadyrbayev’s and Mr. Tazhayakov’s off-campus apartment in New Bedford.

On his Russian social network page, Mr. Kadyrbayev claimed he was an engineering major at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He was not. Nor, in fact, was he enrolled full-time at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth this spring, officials say.

In his profile picture, Mr. Kadyrbayev is wearing a mask of the Iron Man movie character. On his profile, he says that he is from Almaty, Kazakhstan, and that he attended a boarding high school. He lists the school as the Zhautykov Specialized Physics-Mathematics Boarding School for Talented Children of the Republic [of Kazakhstan].

He describes his world view as “Islam” and his personal priority as “improving the world.” What is important in others, he says, is “kindness and honesty.” He notes that he holds negative views on smoking and alcohol.

The Facebook page under Mr. Kadyrbayev’s name shows photos of a trip to Fort Lauderdale, Fla., but limited posts.

All four men â€" Mr. Tsarnaev, Mr. Kadyrbayev, Mr. Tazhayakov and Mr. Phillipos â€" were enrolled at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth in the fall of 2011. Mr. Phillipos dropped out and returned to Cambridge. Mr. Tazhayakov remains a student but has been suspended until the charges against him are resolved.

On the Facebook page under Mr. Tazhayakov’s name, his hometown is given as Atyrau, Kazakhstan, and he says he is a graduate of the Miras International School of Astana.

His VKontakte page includes more photos, including some that appear to be from a trip to New York City. Mr. Tsarnaev, the bombing suspect, does not appear to be in any of these photos, which show a visit to Statue of Liberty, shots of the city’s skyline and another photo near Times Square. In this photo, Mr. Tazhayakov is standing outside Port Authority Bus Terminal with the New York Times building in the background.

Azamat Tazhayakov in front of the New York Times building near Times Square, in a photo from the social network VK.

Ilya Mouzykantskii and Michael Schwirtz contributed reporting.