Jury selection for the trial of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is underway.
Jurors are being selected from about 1,200 people at the federal court in Boston, Massachusetts. Twelve jurors and six alternates will be selected.
Tsarnaev sat at a table in the jury assembly room with his lawyers. He faces the death penalty if convicted. He has pleaded not guilty.
The 21-year-old Tsarnaev is facing 30 charges, including conspiracy and use of a weapon of mass destruction, in the killing of three people and injuring of 260 others with two homemade bombs at the race’s crowded finish line on April 15, 2013.
The trial is set to begin on January 26 and is expected to last three to four months.
Tsarnaev, a naturalized U.S. citizen with roots in Chechnya in Russia’s North Caucasus region, is also charged with fatally shooting a university police officer three days after the bombing, as he and his brother, Tamerlan, tried to flee the area after they were identified as suspects. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police.