AKIPRESS.COM - Khairullozhon Matanov, a friend of the late Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, lost a bid for bail Monday in federal court in Boston after a magistrate judge found that there was a risk he would flee the country, Boston Globe reported.

“I’m satisfied that the government has met its burden ... that the defendant constitutes a risk of flight, or a failure to appear,” US Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler said.

Matanov was the Quincy taxi driver who allegedly called Tamerlan Tsarnaev 42 minutes after the bombings on April 15, 2013, and invited Tamerlan and his brother, Dzhokhar, the other bombing suspect, to dinner. He treated them to a meal that night.

Matanov also allegedly visited Tamerlan, whom he knew from boxing, soccer, and places of worship, at Tsarnaev’s home two days later. During those days after the bombings, he called the brothers repeatedly. Matanov faces charges of lying to investigators and destroying evidence.

Defense attorney Edward Hayden said today that Matanov had voluntarily gone to Braintree police and provided information on the Tsarnaevs.

But Assistant US Attorney Scott Garland said Matanov only came forward to police after realizing it was “inevitable.”

Matanov is a native of Kyrgyzstan with no family in the United States. He came to the United States on a student visa in 2010, then sought asylum because of the turmoil in that country. The Tsarnaev family emigrated from a different part of Kyrgyzstan in the early 2000s.