WASHINGTON: The head of the Boston police department has called on the FBI to share more intelligence about terror suspects, revealing that his officers were not made aware that one of the suspects behind the marathon bombing had travelled to Russia.

Commissioner Edward Davis told a US Senate hearing that he believed the FBI should in the future be mandated to inform police departments when it has information “that poses a threat to our cities”.

Speaking on the day that one of the bombing suspects, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was due to appear in court for the first time, Davis told senators that there was a “gap” in intelligence sharing at the highest level.

“If there is information about a terrorist threat to the city, the local officials should have that information. There should be a mandate somewhere, that the federal authorities have to share that, so we can properly defend our community, “he told the US Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

“I am not saying anything was done wrong here. I am not saying we would have done anything differently if we had the information the FBI had prior to this. What I am saying is there should be a full, equal partnership, where everyone is sharing.”

Three people were killed and more than 260 people were injured when improvised bombs were detonated in the final stretch of the Boston Marathon three months ago.

A police officer was later shot dead by the suspected bombers, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who were originally from Chechnya but living in the US.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died following a confrontation with police three days after the attacks, but Dzhokhar, 19, survived.

It later emerged that the older sibling spent six months in Russia last year, spending time in a region known for militant Islamic activity.

The FBI reportedly investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev after a request from Russian officials, but did not pursue charges.

Davis said he had four officers on the joint terrorism task force, which is supposed to share intelligence about terrorist threats “But we were not aware of the information on Tsarnaev's travel overseas,” he said.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was due to appear in federal court in Boston on Wednesday, charged with using a weapon of mass destruction. It will be the first time the teenager has been seen in public since he was discovered hiding in drydocked boat, following a shootout with police days after the attacks.

A grand jury indictment, which was unsealed last month and lists the charges against the teenager, alleges that as he lay bleeding in a drydocked boat in Watertown, a suburb of Boston, he wrote on the walls: “The US government is killing our innocent civilians. I can't stand to see such evil go unpunished”.

The charge sheet states that the brothers concealed the improvised explosive devices inside black backpacks, before planting them in the crowd of marathon spectators.

The bombs were detonated in quick succession in at 2.49pm. The first, said to have been placed by Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed Krystle Campbell, 29.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, a naturalised US citizen, is accused of setting off the second device, killing Lingzi Lu, 23, and Martin Richard, eight.

The pair are alleged to have spent months preparing for the attack on the 117th Boston Marathon, taking part in target practice at a firing range and purchasing 48 mortars containing 8lb of low-grade explosive powder from a fireworks store in New Hampshire.

They are also accused of downloaded extremist literature from the internet, including first volume of Al Qaeda’s magazine, Inspire, which contained instructions on how to build a pressure-cooker bomb.

After the FBI released CCTV images of the brothers, identifying them as suspects, the pair are alleged to have armed themselves with weapons and driven to Massachusetts Institute of Technology university campus, where the shot and killed a campus police officer, Sean Collier.

The indictment states they then hijacked a Mercedes and drove it to Watertown, where a gunfight with police ensued.

In the fracas, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is said to have run over by his older brother, causing serious injuries which contributed to his death.

Davis and other witnesses at the hearing painted a positive picture of the response by emergency services during the attacks.

The commissioner said senior officers had spent years studying the response to terrorist attacks in London, Madrid and Mumbai.

“Both (suspected) terrorists were captured within 102 hours from the time of the initial explosions,” he said. “This success was the direct result of dedicated training, relationships already in place, an engaged and informed public, and an unprecedented level of coordination, cooperation and information sharing on the line by local, state and federal agencies.”

By arrangement with the Guardian