Anzor Tsarnaev: Boston bombers’ father defends Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev
Anzor Tsarnaev, the father of suspected marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was screaming and yelling while talking about how he could not believe the charges against his sons.
“They never could have done this. Never, ever, ever!” said the father, who lives in an area of Russia called Makhachkala.
Anzor Tsarnaev also said that he believes that his sons were set up, and without going into specifics, he said that if his younger son was killed once he is found, then he would see it as proof that there was a conspiracy afoot.
“If they killed him, then all hell would break loose,” Anzor Tsarnaev told ABC News.
“If they kill my second child, I will know that it is an inside job, a hit job. The police are to blame.”
In a surprising twist, Anzor Tsarnaev said that he spoke to both of his sons just Thursday, days after the two bombs killed three and injured more than 180 people at the Boston marathon on Monday.
The boys told him: “Everything is good, Daddy. Everything is very good.”
When asked what he would say to his living son, Dzhokhar, he said: “Give up. Give up. You have a bright future ahead of you. Come home to Russia.”
The ABC reporter said that Anzor Tsarnaev was rather calm during their conversation, but that wasn’t the case when he spoke to People magazine earlier, as he was described as screaming and yelling.
“I feel terrible! Why they kill my son? Something wrong! My sons never do bombing. They hated guns – how they do bombs?” the father told People.
“I talked to my sons yesterday, both of them. We talked about the bombing. I was worried about them, they said they were okay.”
The first suspect- identified by officials as 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev- was shot and killed during a firefight with police but his younger brother Dzhokhar was able to escape and remains on the run.
He went on to say that they were good kids with “big dreams”.
Anzor Tsarnaev believes that his sons were set up and if his younger son was killed once he is found, then he would see it as proof that there was a conspiracy afoot
“I am very depressed. How am I going to live? Never I think in my mind this happen. My sons hate people who do bombs, they hate terrorists. Why they kill my son? And where is my other son? They have time to catch my other son, not kill,” Anzor Tsarnaev said.
Earlier on Friday, Anzor Tsarnaev talked to the Associated Press, calling Dzhokhar “a true angel”.
“Dzhokhar is a second-year medical student in the U.S. He is such an intelligent boy. We expected him to come on holidays here.”
The siblings’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, gave an interview to the English-language Russian news channel RT America, insisting that her sons are “100 per cent innocent”, and that they have been framed.
“This is a set up, my son would never ever carry out such terror attack,” Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said Friday.
The mother went on to say: “FBI knew everything what my son was doing, told me he was serious leader, that they were afraid of him.”
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva went on to say that Dzhokhar was raised in the US and insisted that “no one ever talked about terror” in their house.
That favorable picture of Dzhokhar, 19, and Tamerlan, 26, comes in stark contrast to what one of their uncles recalled.
Ruslan Tsarni, an uncle of the Boston bombing suspect who died early Friday morning, said that he was a “loser”.
Rather than being upset about his nephew’s death, Ruslan Tsarni, who lives in Maryland, called Tamerlan a “loser” and said that he “deserved” his death this morning.
The boys’ aunt, Maret Tsarnaeva, is a surgeon who lives in Canada. She used to be in Chechnya and her acts as a battlefield surgeon are described in a book.
“This is a huge tragedy for the family. My brother’s two boys, they are growing up so fast,” she told The Toronto Sun.
“My first reaction is, <<Why the hell would they do this?>> But when I go through all the material, it’s not giving anything… the whole world is now making a decision (on them) now by just seeing these pictures and not having anything else.”
Maret Tsarnaeva told how her older brother Anzor had high expectations for his children, especially his older son Tamerlan.
Anzor Tsarnaev was disappointed when he heard that Tamerlan, who was killed in a shoot out early Friday morning, had dropped out of college, but she thought that he had a happy life.
“Within the family, everything was perfect,” she said.
One hint of tension that she did reveal, however, was that Tamerlan Tsarnaev “seemingly did not find himself yet in America, because it’s not easy”.
She said that the 26-year-old became a devout Muslim “but just recently, maybe two years ago, he started praying five times a day’.
“He has a wife in Boston and from a Christian family, so you can’t tie it to religion,” Maret Tsarnaeva told reporters.
The FBI has cordoned off the three-story brick building where the bombers’ sister lives in West New York, near Union city in New Jersey.
The New Jersey Star Ledger spoke to her earlier in the day and she said that she has not been in frequent contact with either of them.
“They were great people. I never would have expected it. They are smart – I don’t know what’s gotten into them,” she said.
When asked if she was okay, she said: “No I’m not okay– no one is okay right now. I’m hurt for everyone who has been hurt. I’m sorry for all the people who are hurt and for all the people who lost their lives.”
Several former classmates described Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a friendly, smart kid, and they said they were shocked that he was part of the pair who killed three and injured more than 180 in the marathon bombings on Monday.
An unidentified friend told CNN that he “hung out, went to parties, smoked some weed… it’s not like he’s some foreign dude”.
A different uncle, Alvi Tsarni, who lives close by in Boston was visibly upset when he spoke about his nephews.
“I don’t believe any of my nephews are involved in this horrible incident,” Alvi Tsarni told the Boston CBS affiliate WBZ.
“If he did this I’m sorry too. It’s crazy, it’s not possible. I can’t believe it. Who can do this stuff?”