BOSTON (AP) — A close friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has testified he gave a gun to the Boston Marathon bomber two months before the attack.
Stephen Silva said during testimony Tuesday that he loaned Tsarnaev a P95 Ruger pistol in February 2013.
Silva says he asked Tsarnaev to return the gun to him repeatedly in the weeks before the April 15, 2013, bombing. He says Tsarnaev "made up excuses" for not returning it.
The bombing killed three people and injured more than 260 others. Three days later, MIT police officer Sean Collier was fatally shot as he sat in his cruiser.
Authorities say the P-95 Ruger was the gun used to kill Collier. Tsarnaev's lawyers say it was Tsarnaev's brother, Tamerlan, who shot Collier.
Silva has a plea deal with prosecutors.
