Friend of Boston Marathon bomber sentenced to 6 years in prison

A friend of convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has been sentenced to 72 months in prison for obstructing justice, the U.S. Attorney's Office announced Tuesday.

Dias Kadyrbayev pleaded guilty last year to obstruction of justice, admitting that he removed evidence from Tsarnaev's dorm room, specifically his backpack and computer. The Kazakhstan native befriended Tsarnaev while an exchange student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth.

"Hours before (Dzhokhar) Tsarnaev murdered Officer Collier, the defendant (Kadyrbayev) recognized that his friend Tsarnaev was the fugitive bomber. Any reasonable, decent person possessed of the information the defendant had would have recognized that immediate apprehension of Tsarnaev was a public-safety imperative," prosecutors wrote in their sentencing memo for Kadyrbayev, according to the Associated Press.

During Tsarnaev's trial, it was revealed that the bomber had texted Kadyrbayev shortly after the April 15, 2013 attack, writing, "U saw the news?... Better not text me my friend."

In April, a Massachusetts jury found Tsarnaev guilty on all 30 counts stemming from the bombing, which he planned and executed with his brother Tamerlan, who died during the ensuing manhunt. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sentenced to death by lethal injection in May.