The accused Boston Marathon bomber’s primary Twitter account has been heavily scrutinized, but Monday’s testimony revealed the existence of an alternate handle attributed to the 21-year-old. It features only seven tweets, all posted in a three-day span in March 2013, the month before the bombing, and all hashtagged #islam.
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“Kufr,” referenced above in the final tweet from the account, roughly equates to non-believers.
Special Agent Steve Kimball of the Boston field office testified that the above account and the better-known @J_Tsar handle were registered under different email addresses but both traced to IP addresses at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth, where Tsarnaev was a student.
In addition to disclosure of the @Al_firdausiA handle, Kimball also walked jurors through a series of tweets from the @J_Tsar account, which now has more than 59,000 followers.
Tsarnaev sent the following tweet hours after the bombs went off on Boylston Street:
Kimball was the 11th witness called on a busy day that also included testimony from top Boston police and EMS officials; employees at UMass-Dartmouth and Whole Foods who described Tsarnaev’s activities in the hours and days after the attack; and more witnesses from the grisly scene at the marathon finish line.
Court was adjourned after Kimball’s direct examination by prosecutors, so Tsarnaev’s lawyers will get a chance to cross-examine him Tuesday as the trial enters its fourth day.
