Three new suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were taken into custody, the Boston Police Department tweeted on Wednesday.
Two of the three additional suspects are students from New Bedford, Massachusetts, according to a law enforcement source reported by CNN. The two students were arrested for making false statements to investigators and conspiring to obstruct justice. The third suspect is reported to be a U.S. citizen.
It is unclear if he or she was charged with the same offenses as the other two suspects.
The charges against the two students don't appear related to the actual bombing itself, according to Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz.
"If they knew about the bombing, if they were involved in the bombing, the charges would be conspiracy to do the acts for which the other man has already been charged," Dershowitz said. "So it sounds like at this point in time the only evidence they have is actions that took place after the bombing."
The two students are from Kazakhstan and were already in custody on immigration charges, another source told CNN.
Reuters reports a U.S. law enforcement source as saying that two of the suspects taken into custody are classmates of bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth. Police are looking into whether the two suspects threw away a backpack at Dzhokhar's request after the marathon bombings.
Dzhokhar was a sophomore majoring in Marine Biology at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth before the April 15 bombings, according to the Boston Globe.
Boston Police released the following statement:
"Please be advised that there is not threat to public safety. Three additional suspects have been taken into custody in connection to the attack on the Boston Marathon. Aside from the aforementioned, there is no additional info to release at this time. Additional details will be provided when they become available. No info available at this time relative to a press conference."
Dzhokhar and his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, are suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and wounded hundreds. Tamerlan, 26, died on April 19 in a gunfight with police. Dzhokhar is currently in custody and charged with using a weapon of mass destruction.
