Boston bombing case student re-entered US with invalid university visa

The authorities charged the student – a friend and classmate of one of the men accused of setting off last month’s explosions – with helping to remove a laptop and backpack from the suspect’s dormitory room after the attacks and before the FBI searched it.

The government yesterday acknowledged that US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) was unaware that the student was no longer in college when he was let back into the US.

The disclosure was another instance of possible lapses by the government in the months before the bombings.

The Obama administration earlier this week announced an internal review of how US intelligence agencies shared sensitive information and whether the attack could have been prevented.

On Wednesday, federal authorities arrested three college friends of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, including Azamat Tazhayakov, a friend and classmate of Tsarnaev’s at the University of Massachusetts.

Tazhayakov left the US in December and returned on January 20. But in early January, his student visa status was terminated because he was academically dismissed from the university, a law enforcement official said.

The official said information about Tazhayakov’s status was in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) student and exchange visitor information system, when Tazhayakov arrived in New York in January.

A DHS spokesman said that when Tazhayakov returned on January 20, border officials had not been notified that he was no longer a student, adding that the DHS was now reforming the student visa system to ensure that CBP would have access to all relevant information.

“At the time of re-entry there was no derogatory information that suggested this individual posed a national security or public safety threat,” the spokesman explained.