Two students from Kazakhstan have been charged with obstructing the investigation into the Boston marathon bombing, which left three dead and over 100 injured in April.

Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, both 19-year-old students from Kazakhstan, were indicted by a federal grand jury on August 8, USA Today reports. 
The two students, who were associates of the two brothers suspected of carrying out the fatal April 15 attack, face up to 25 years in jail on charges of obstructing justice and conspiring to obstruct justice (overtaking conspiracy charges brought against them in May). They will be formally charged in a federal court in Boston on August 13, the report quoted a spokeswoman for the US attorney as saying.
Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov are alleged to have disposed of evidence by throwing away the backpack of the surviving suspected bomber, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, after hearing about the terrorist attack in the media and finding their friend’s backpack contained suspicious objects. 
Kadyrbayev's attorney, Robert Stahl, expressed disappointment at the charges and said his client had been “shocked and horrified to learn that someone he knew was involved in the terrible Marathon bombing.” 
“Even though he was literally stunned and in fear, and even though he is from a country where the police are routinely distrusted, from the moment the authorities approached him he has fully cooperated,” the attorney said in a statement quoted by USA Today.
Last month Tsarnaev, whose brother Tamerlan died in a shootout with Boston police on April 19, pleaded not guilty on 30 criminal counts connected to the bombing.
The two suspected attackers have roots in Central Asia because their family is from the Chechen Diaspora community in Kyrgyzstan. They also have tenuous links to Kazakhstan, where they once lived briefly with their uncle, who worked there in the oil business.