Source: Suspects planned July 4 attack

By Ross Kerber, Jim Finkle and Mark Hosenball

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon had originally planned to set off their bombs on July 4, a law enforcement official said.

The source said the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, advanced the date of their attack because they completed building bombs more quickly then they originally anticipated. The official declined to be identified and did not offer more details.

Police say the brothers detonated two bombs made with pressure-cookers in the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded 264.

An attack on Boston's packed July 4 celebrations would have carried the extra symbolism of disrupting the city's widely followed Independence Day celebrations.

News of the alleged July 4 attack plan was earlier reported by The New York Times.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts, on April 19. His brother was wounded in the shootout and captured later that day.

The remains of Tamerlan Tsarnaev were claimed on behalf of his family on Thursday. His body had been kept at a Boston facility for more than a week.

Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts, said a funeral services company retained by the family had claimed the body. Harris declined to provide details including the cause of death or where the body had been taken.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged with crimes in connection with the bombing that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted, and is being held at a prison medical facility in Devens, Massachusetts.

On Tuesday, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, said through an attorney that she wished his remains to be released to the Tsarnaev family.

Russell's attorney could not immediately be reached on Thursday.

Investigators have questioned Russell as they seek clues about how the ethnic Chechen brothers allegedly built the two bombs used in the attack and whether they had help.

The suspects' parents previously lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but have since returned to Russia. Other relatives remain in the United States, including an uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Maryland, who has been seen in Rhode Island in recent days.

Officials said on Thursday that three men who had been charged with interfering with the investigation of the bombing were in custody at a jail in Middleton, Massachusetts, a small town about 20 miles North of Boston.

The three 19-year-olds - Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos - had been transported to the Essex County Correctional Facility in Middleton on Wednesday after they were charged in Boston. Authorities have described them as college friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

(Additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Boston bombing suspects had planned July 4 attack

By Ross Kerber, Jim Finkle and Mark Hosenball

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The two brothers suspected of carrying out the deadly attacks on the Boston Marathon had originally planned to set off their bombs on July 4, a law enforcement official said.

The source said the suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, advanced the date of their attack because they completed building bombs more quickly then they originally anticipated. The official declined to be identified and did not offer more details.

Police say the brothers detonated two bombs made with pressure-cookers in the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded 264.

An attack on Boston's packed July 4 celebrations would have carried the extra symbolism of disrupting the city's widely followed Independence Day celebrations.

News of the alleged July 4 attack plan was earlier reported by The New York Times.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts, on April 19. His brother was wounded in the shootout and captured later that day.

The remains of Tamerlan Tsarnaev were claimed on behalf of his family on Thursday. His body had been kept at a Boston facility for more than a week.

Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner of Massachusetts, said a funeral services company retained by the family had claimed the body. Harris declined to provide details including the cause of death or where the body had been taken.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged with crimes in connection with the bombing that could carry the death penalty if he is convicted, and is being held at a prison medical facility in Devens, Massachusetts.

On Tuesday, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow, Katherine Russell, said through an attorney that she wished his remains to be released to the Tsarnaev family.

Russell's attorney could not immediately be reached on Thursday.

Investigators have questioned Russell as they seek clues about how the ethnic Chechen brothers allegedly built the two bombs used in the attack and whether they had help.

The suspects' parents previously lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts, but have since returned to Russia. Other relatives remain in the United States, including an uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Maryland, who has been seen in Rhode Island in recent days.

Officials said on Thursday that three men who had been charged with interfering with the investigation of the bombing were in custody at a jail in Middleton, Massachusetts, a small town about 20 miles North of Boston.

The three 19-year-olds - Azamat Tazhayakov, Dias Kadyrbayev and Robel Phillipos - had been transported to the Essex County Correctional Facility in Middleton on Wednesday after they were charged in Boston. Authorities have described them as college friends of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

(Additional reporting by Svea Herbst-Bayliss; Editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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Venezuela's Capriles calls off planned march in Caracas

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Simpler inauguration planned for a more modest pope

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Francis celebrates his inaugural Mass on Tuesday among political and religious leaders from around the world and amid a wave of hope for a renewal of the scandal-plagued Roman Catholic Church.

Hundreds of thousands of people are expected to cram St. Peter's Square and surrounding streets for the Mass on Tuesday to formally install Francis as the new leader of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.

Six sovereigns, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden and other leaders as well as heads of many other faiths will be among the 130 delegations on the steps of the famous basilica.

Among them will be Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew from Istanbul, the first time the spiritual head of Orthodox Christians attends a Roman pope's inaugural Mass since the Great Schism between western and eastern Christianity in 1054.

The former Buenos Aires Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio has aroused enormous enthusiasm and interest in the Catholic world by the modest way he has assumed a post that was modeled after a Renaissance monarchy and carries titles such as "Vicar of Jesus Christ" and "Supreme Pontiff of the Universal Church".

In the six days since his election, he has referred to himself only as Bishop of Rome, the position from which his authority flows, and hinted he plans to reduce Vatican centralism and govern in consultation with other bishops.

SIGNALS OF CHANGE

Vatican watchers expect him to send further signals of change by using a simpler liturgy than retired Pope Benedict, who preferred a more baroque style.

The ceremony has also been shortened to two hours after a three-hour service in 2005 when Benedict began his papacy.

Francis will start the day with a ride around St. Peter's Square to greet the crowds. He will receive the visiting political leaders in the basilica after the Mass.

On Wednesday, Francis will receive more than 30 delegations representing other Christian churches, as well as the Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Sikh and Jain religions, a Vatican spokesman said.

He will address foreign ambassadors to the Vatican on Friday and have lunch with Benedict -- their first meeting since the conclave -- on Saturday before leading celebrations the next day for Palm Sunday, the first day of Holy Week leading to Easter.

Francis had his first taste of the diplomatic challenges of the papacy when on Monday, Argentinian President Cristina Fernandez asked him to support Buenos Aires in a dispute with Britain over the Falkland Islands in the South Atlantic.

A Vatican spokesman had no comment on the request.

He will also find himself greeting an international pariah, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe, who has been under a European Union travel ban since 2002 because of allegations of vote rigging and human rights abuses.

The Vatican is not part of the European Union, allowing him to bend the rules.

(Editing by Giles Elgood)

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