BOSTON (
MyFoxBoston.com/AP) -- The former brother-in-law of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev testified for the defense from a U.S. embassy in Kazakhstan as the penalty phase of the trial continued Wednesday.
Elmirza Khozhugov is the former husband of Dzhokhar's sister Ailina Tsarnaeva. He testified live Wednesday from the embassy in Almaty.
Khozhugov said the oldest Tsarnaev sibling, Tamerlan, had a very close relationship with Dzhokhar. He said Tamerlan sometimes struggled to find the words to express how much he loved Dzhokhar and how he would do anything to make him successful.
In turn, Khozhugov said, Dzkokhar adored Tamerlan and went along with him on outings.
The defense has tried to portray Tamerlan as the mastermind of the 2013 bombings. Tamerlan died days after the bombing.
The defense team continued to work to save Tsarnaev's life by trying to convince the jury that a forever stay at Colorado's ADX, or Supermax, would be a fate worse than death and a fitting punishment.
Supermax is already home to several high profile terror inmates, including the Unabomber Ted Kacinsky.
Retired federal prison warden Mark Bezy told the jury the most notorious ADX inmates are sent to ADX's H unit where inmates are segregated from each other. And more than that, Bezy said the US Attorney General can add further restrictions called Special Administrative Measures, or SAMS. Those can limit an inmate to two phone calls a month, only to immediate family. Inmates can write only to immediate family and visits are restricted to immediate family as well, one at a time, in a small booth with no physical contact.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev already has SAMS restrictions placed on him, and his lawyers have already had some of them modified.
In a heated cross examination of Bezy, the government established those tight restrictions at ADX can change. And the SAMS need to be renewed every year. And some H Unit inmates have been moved to other sections of ADX.
Jurors will soon to decide whether Dzhokhar will be sentenced to death.
(AP Photo/Jane Flavell Collins)
