Nearly two years after a pair of bombs killed three people and injured nearly 300 near the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 21-year-old surviving suspect in the attacks, is finally set to get his day in court. Jury selection is scheduled to begin Jan. 5 in the highly anticipated trial, which might finally reveal some of the lingering mystery about how Tsarnaev and his older brother Tamerlan, who was killed while on the run from police, allegedly came to commit such a terrible crime. But it’s not just Tsarnaev under the spotlight. His family and friends have all come under scrutiny since the bombings. His defense team is expected to cite Tsarnaev’s troubled family history as they try to save him from the death penalty. Several of his closest friends who face legal problems of their own are expected to testify against him at trial, while another associate sits in jail, entangled in the murky web of the Boston plot. Here’s a look at the family, friends and associates of Tsarnaev who could come up in the trial—including the prominent attorney trying to save his life. (Holly Bailey/Yahoo News)

FAMILY
Tamerlan Tsarnaev — The older brother of the defendant and a co-conspirator in the bombing plot, Tamerlan, who was 26, was killed four days after the attacks when prosecutors say Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran him over with a car while trying to escape police. The defense team has hinted it will cast Tamerlan as the bullying mastermind of the bombings, and it has pushed to introduce evidence of his radicalization as well as his suspected role in a 2011 triple murder outside Boston as proof. But prosecutors have fought to limit mention of Tamerlan — insisting it is his younger brother on trial, not him.

FAMILY
Anzor Tsarnaev — The suspect’s father, he moved from Kyrgyzstan to the Boston suburbs in 2002 with his wife and youngest son, Dzhokhar. The family was granted asylum after claiming they were persecuted in Russia for being ethnic Chechens. The three other Tsarnaev kids soon followed. A former boxer, Anzor worked as a car mechanic but struggled to make ends meet, and the family reportedly lived on public assistance. In 2011, he divorced his wife — in part because he reportedly disagreed with her growing religious extremism. He soon moved back to Russia, citing severe health problems.

FAMILY
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva — The suspect’s mother, she became increasingly religious during her time in America, and investigators have looked into her role in the radicalization of her sons. Intelligence agencies added Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother to a terrorism database in 2011 at the request of the Russian government amid concerns they had become religious militants. She moved back to Russia in 2012, a few months after she was arrested on a felony shoplifting charge outside Boston. A warrant remains out for her arrest in that case, and she has said the fear of being jailed has prevented her from returning to the U.S. to visit her son. She has denied any links to terrorism and insists her sons were “framed.”

FAMILY
Bella Tsarnaeva — Bella, 26, is the defendant’s oldest sister. In December 2012, she was arrested and charged with drug possession and intent to distribute after police responding to a domestic violence call at her home in Fairview, N.J., found marijuana there. She reached a plea deal with prosecutors in the case, allowing her to avoid a criminal record if she stays out of trouble. According to a friend, she is pregnant with her second child, due in February.

FAMILY
Ailina Tsarnaeva — Ailina, 24, made headlines in August 2014 when she was arrested and charged in New York with threatening to blow up an ex-girlfriend of the father of her child. She was briefly jailed in September when prosecutors said she violated an order of protection by driving past the woman’s house. She has pleaded not guilty in that case. In November, she pleaded guilty in Boston to lying to police in a 2010 counterfeiting case but avoided jail time. Tsarnaeva lives in New Jersey with Katherine Russell, the widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Outside her home last summer, she denied her brothers’ involvement in the bombings. “My brothers got framed,” she said. “Everybody knows that.”

FAMILY
Katherine Russell — The 25-year-old widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Russell remains under scrutiny in the bombing investigation and is likely to be called as a witness in the trial. She has denied any advance knowledge of the plot, but federal officials have been skeptical. The oldest daughter of an affluent family in Rhode Island, she converted to Islam after meeting Tsarnaev in 2009. They married in June 2010, and four months later, she gave birth to their daughter, Zahara, now 4. Her attorney has said she worked 80 hours a week as a home health aide, while her husband stayed at home with their daughter in the Cambridge apartment where the bomb plot was allegedly hatched. After the attacks, Russell and her daughter retreated to Rhode Island, where she issued a joint written statement with her family saying she felt she never really knew her husband at all. But sometime this year, she moved to New Jersey to live with Ailina Tsarnaeva, who has denied her family’s involvement in the bombings. Russell’s mother, father and two sisters were called to testify before a federal grand jury in Boston investigating the bombings, but Russell never was. Investigators have not formally cleared her in the case.

FAMILY
Ruslan Tsarni —Also known as Ruslan Tsarnaev, he is the brother of Anzor Tsarnaev, the suspect’s father. He immigrated to America in 1995 and became a lawyer who now lives in Montgomery Village, Md. He had been estranged from his brother and his family in 2010, and speaking to reporters after the April 2013 bombs he called his nephews “losers.” But Tsarni helped find a burial plot for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, when many cemeteries refused his body. It’s unclear if he’s had any contact with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, but he could be a defense witness in the trial, as Tsarnaev’s attorneys have hinted they will delve into the family’s troubled history as a possible motivator.

ASSOCIATES
Stephen Silva — A close friend of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s since high school, Silva, 21, pleaded guilty in December to once possessing a gun that his lawyer said has been linked to the fatal shooting of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer allegedly committed by the Tsarnaev brothers while they were on the run from the cops. Silva reached a deal with federal prosecutors in the case — though it’s been kept under seal — and he’s expected to testify against his old friend, likely explaining how the gun went from him to the Tsarnaevs. Silva briefly lived with the Tsarnaev family in Cambridge and could also testify about the relationship between the brothers.

ASSOCIATES
Azamat Tazhayakov — A native of Kazakhstan, Tazhayakov, 20, was convicted in July 2014 of conspiracy and obstruction of justice after he helped remove and get rid of a backpack containing a laptop and fireworks from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s dorm room at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where they were both students. He faces 25 years in prison on the charges and is expected to testify against Tsarnaev.

ASSOCIATES
Dias Kadyrbayev — The 20-year-old University of Dartmouth student pleaded guilty in August 2014 to his role in removing evidence from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s dorm room after the bombings. Under a plea deal with investigators, Kadyrbayev, who is also from Kazakhstan, will serve a maximum of seven years on charges of obstructing justice. He’s expected to testify against Tsarnaev.

ASSOCIATES
Robel Phillipos — Phillipos, 21, was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s best friend since high school. Also a student at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, he was with Azamat Tszhayakov and Dias Kadyrbayev when they removed evidence from Tsarnaev’s dorm room. He pleaded not guilty to charges that he lied to FBI agents, arguing that he was too high on marijuana while in Tsarnaev’s dorm room to accurately remember what happened. But a jury didn’t buy it. He was found guilty in October 2014 and faces upwards of 16 years in prison. He is set to be sentenced in late January and could be called as a witness in Tsarnaev’s trial.

ASSOCIATES
Khairullozhon Matanov — Matanov, 23, was arrested in May 2014 and charged with obstruction of justice and lying to federal investigators after he allegedly tried to hide his friendship with the Tsarnaev brothers. The Kyrgyzstan national, who worked as a cab driver in Quincy, Mass., allegedly befriended Tamerlan Tsarnaev after meeting him at a local mosque. While he is not accused of playing any role in the bombings, his indictment strongly implies he shared Tsarnaev’s radical religious views, noting a trip the two made to New Hampshire “in order to train like, and praise, the mujahideen.” Matanov allegedly phoned Tamerlan Tsarnaev 42 minutes after the bombings, and prosecutors say he had dinner with the Tsarnaev brothers that night. He allegedly also visited Tsarnaev at his Cambridge apartment two days after the attacks and repeatedly texted the brothers after the FBI released photos of the suspected bombers. Hours after Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed, Matanov went to local police to tell them he knew the brothers, but prosecutors say that he lied repeatedly, allegedly saying he’d had no recent contacts with them and that he erased other evidence from his personal computer. Federal officials have not said why they waited more than a year to arrest him. Matanov had been held in solitary confinement at a Massachusetts jail since his arrest in May. But after he accused guards there of beating him, a federal judge transferred him in November to a private prison in Rhode Island. On Jan. 12, Matanov filed notice that he plans to plead guilty in the case—right as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s trial is scheduled to begin, suggesting he’s cooperating with prosecutors. It’s not clear if Matanov will be called as a witness, but his name has already come up several times. Confidential memos about his interrogation by FBI agents — including how he watched news coverageof the attacks with the brothers — were leaked to Boston magazine in November, setting off wrangling between prosecutors and the Tsarnaev defense attorneys, who have accused law enforcement of leaking damaging information to the press about their client.

ASSOCIATES
Ibragim Todashev — A former mixed martial arts fighter who was best friends with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 27-year-old Chechen immigrant was shot and killed by an FBI agent at his Orlando, Fla., apartment in May 2013. According to a Justice Department investigation into the shooting, Todashev was writing a confession implicating himself and Tsarnaev in a 2011 triple homicide in Waltham, Mass., when he suddenly hit a FBI agent with a coffee table. He then grabbed a pole and charged toward a Massachusetts State Police officer, who was also on the scene, as if to impale him, when the agent shot him seven times, killing him. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team has repeatedly pressed prosecutors for their information about the Waltham murders, suggesting it is evidence of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s violent tendencies and how it might have influenced their client. But prosecutors have refused, and the judge has called the case irrelevant.

ATTORNEY
Judy Clarke — One of the best-known attorneys in the country, Clarke is a former federal public defender and the best-known lawyer on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s defense team. Based in San Diego, she has represented some of the most notorious criminal defendants in the country, saving them from execution. Among her past clients: Unabomber Ted Kaczynski, Atlanta Olympics bomber Eric Rudolph and Susan Smith, the South Carolina woman who killed her two kids in 1994. She also represented Jared Loughner, who shot and killed six people and severely injured Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, among others, in 2011. She is currently defending James Holmes, who allegedly shot and killed 12 people and injured 70 at a Colorado movie theater in 2012.