Newly released court documents have revealed that Boston marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev suffered multiple and severe gunshot injuries including a gunshot to the face before his capture in April.
"He has multiple gunshot wounds, the most severe of which appears to have entered through the left side inside of his mouth and exited the left face, lower face," said Dr. Stephen Ray Odom, a trauma surgeon, to a court convened inside Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, according to ABC News. Tsarnaev was treated at the facility three days after his arrest. He is now being hospitalized and imprisoned at the Federal Medical Center in Devens, Mass.
"This was a high-powered injury that has resulted in skull-base fracture, with injuries to the middle ear, the skull base ... his ... vertebrae ... as well as injury to the pharynx, [and] the mouth," Odom said in testimony given April 22, reports CNN.
Tsarnaev was given the pain killer Dilaudil, however, the doctor added that the 20-year-old "definitely knows where he is" and was capable of answering questions.
ABC News reports that that the documents had been "inadvertently unsealed" prematurely and had since been placed back under seal.
Tsarnaev stands accused of planting two homemade bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded 260 others on April 15. He was found hiding in a boat on April 19 in Watertown, Mass., following a statewide manhunt and shootout with police that left his brother and suspected accomplice, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, dead.
At his last court hearing, he pleaded not guilty. If convicted, he faces the death penalty.