AKIPRESS.COM - A long-time friend of the alleged Boston Marathon bomber testified in court today that he gave Dzhokhar Tsarnaev the gun later used in the shooting death of an MIT police officer.

Stephen Silva, 21, told the court that he would consider Tsarnaev "one of my best friends."

Silva is currently in prison after signing a plea deal with the government. He was the subject of an undercover federal investigation last year and pleaded guilty to charges including distribution of heroin, and possession of a firearm with an obliterated serial number. While wearing a beige prison jumpsuit, Silva testified that two months before the bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line, he gave Tsarnaev a 9-millimeter handgun that had an "obliterated" serial number.

The gun was later used in the fatal shooting of MIT Police Officer Sean Collier, according to prosecutors, and during a shootout between Tsarnaev and police.

After loaning the gun to Tsarnaev around February 2013, Silva testified, he kept asking Tsarnaev to return it but kept getting the runaround.

“I wanted it back,” said Silva, who has been incarcerated since his arrest. “But he just kept coming up with excuses.”

Peppered with questions by attorneys on both sides, Silva later focused in his testimony as much on what he thought of Tsarnaev’s personality as on the gun. Prosecutors tried to portray Tsarnaev as a secret jihadist with murderous plans, a depraved criminal worthy of the death penalty.

Meanwhile, defense attorneys, who have admitted that Tsarnaev participated in the bombing that killed three and injured about 260 people, say he should be given life in prison without parole, rather than a death sentence, because he was a minor player in the violent plot.

Silva testified that he had obtained the Ruger gun in 2012 as a temporary loan from someone named “Howie.” He had also been interested in having a gun because his brother had been robbed of at least $6,000 during a drug deal, and he wanted a gun for protection.

Silva faces the same gun charges, as well as charges of conspiracy to distribute heroin. In court, he testified that he faces a minimum mandatory sentence of five years in prison, and possibly an even longer sentence, but a judge could sentence him to less time if the government recommends it.

Other than Silva and Kadyrbayev, two other friends of Tsarnaev have faced federal charges in connection with his case. Robel Phillipos, a Rindge friend, is scheduled to be sentenced April 6 for lying to the FBI during the bombing investigation. Azamat Tazhayakov, another friend from UMass Dartmouth, was convicted of obstruction of justice.

At one point in Silva’s testimony, Tsarnaev’s defense attorneys seemed to try to use the different images of Tsarnaev to their advantage, suggesting that Tsarnaev was highly impressionable, a young man without a strong inner core, reports Boston Globe.