BOSTON — Lawyers for a friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have called a linguistics expert to help to make their case that their client was not proficient enough in English to understand his Miranda rights.

An applied linguistics professor at Temple University testified Monday that she analyzed Dias Kadyrbayev’s emails, academic records and other writings. Aneta Pavlenko said she believes it’s “highly unlikely” he understood the spoken Miranda warnings about his right to remain silent he received while being questioned by authorities several days after the bombings.

Kadyrbayev is asking a judge to suppress those statements. He is expected to take the witness stand later Monday.

Kadyrbayev and another friend, Azamat Tazhayakov are accused of removing items from Tsarnaev’s dorm room at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth several days after the bombings.


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