In brief: Boston Marathon bomb suspect’s trial to go forward

BOSTON – The trial of marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev can begin as scheduled Monday in Boston after a federal appeals court ruled that the defense had not met the “extraordinary” standard required to justify its intervention.

The 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals announced its decision Saturday. Tsarnaev’s lawyer had asked the court to delay the trial and move it out of Massachusetts, saying he couldn’t get a fair trial in a place where so many were affected by the bombings.

The appeals court ruled 2-1 to avoid intervening in the trial’s timing and location. The dissenting judge said he didn’t have enough time to carefully consider the petition filed Wednesday.

Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty to 30 charges connected to the April 2013 explosions that killed three people.

Embassy bomb suspect dies while awaiting trial

CAIRO – Abu Anas al-Libi, a man accused by federal prosecutors of being an al-Qaida member involved in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies, died of complications from liver surgery, his wife said Saturday. He was 50.

U.S. special forces raided Libya in 2013 and seized him in the streets of the capital, Tripoli, bringing him back to America to stand trial. He had pleaded not guilty to the charges and was awaiting trial.

In a court filing Saturday, U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara said al-Libi died Friday night after being taken from New York’s Metropolitan Correctional Center to a local hospital.

Al-Libi, also known as Nazih Abdul-Hamed al-Ruqai, was indicted in December 2000 of being involved in the twin 1998 truck bombings at the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 224 people, including a dozen Americans, and wounded more than 4,500 people.