Boston Marathon bombings investigators are examining whether suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was influenced by Magomed Kartashov, a distant cousin with ties to extremist Islamist groups in Russia.
Magomed Kartashov is founder and leader of a group called The Union of the Just which reportedly promotes the application of Islamic Sharia law and has protested against the U.S.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev is said to have met Magomed Kartashov for the first time when he spent six months in Dagestan, Russia’s turbulent Caucasus region, last year.
His mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told TIME Magazine that the two “became very close”.
Magomed Kartashov is founder and leader of a group called The Union of the Just which reportedly promotes the application of Islamic Sharia law
The Union of the Just publicly renounces violence, but several of its members have ties to militants.
A lawyer for Magomed Kartashov confirmed to ABC News that Russian security agents recently interviewed her client about his links to Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Magomed Kartashov admits that the two were close but insists that it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev who tried to “pull him into extremism”.
He is currently in jail on charges of resisting police in an unrelated matter. His lawyer expects he will remain there for at least two more months.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed during a violent standoff with police on April 19, days after he and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, allegedly planted homemade bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was captured alive and has been charged with using and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. He faces the death penalty.
Ever since the attack, investigators have been trying to understand how the brothers would have become radicalized to the point of wanting to kill and maim people in the U.S., the country they called home.
Much of the focus has been on Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s six-month visit to Dagestan, a restive region in southern Russia that is home to an Islamist militant insurgency. They want to know if and how Tamerlan Tsarnaev attempted to join militant groups there.
Earlier, a U.S. official confirmed to ABC News that investigators are also looking into Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s contacts with a young militant named Mahmud Mansur Nidal.
The two were reportedly seen leaving a controversial Salafist mosque in the capital of Makhachkala that has been popular with militants over the years.
They also want to know about possible contacts with a Canadian-Russian militant named William Plonikov, who was killed in a police shootout last July, just days before Tamerlan Tsarnaev suddenly left the country.
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Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has launched into a bizarre rant in which she claims she does not care if she or her youngest son are to be killed by US authorities.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who now lives in Dagestan, Russia, said in an emotional telephone interview that she believes her sons, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, have been framed for the bombings.
The suspects’ father, Anzor Tsarnaev, has already been interviewed by Russian and American authorities and will make his way to the United States along with his ex-wife as early as Thursday.
Their eldest son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died after a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts on Friday, while Dzhokhar, 19, is in hospital recovering from a wound to the neck.
“If they are going to kill him, I don’t care,” Zubeidat Tsarnaeva told CNN of Dzhokhar.
“My oldest one is killed, so I don’t care. I don’t care is my youngest one is going to be killed today. I want the world to hear this.
‘And I don’t care if I am going to get killed too. And I will say Allahu akbar!”
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva has launched into a bizarre rant saying she does not care if she or her son Dzhokhar are to be killed by US authorities
While Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was reportedly injured from a self-inflicted gunshot wound as he sought to hide from police in a boat parked in a backyard, his mother said she does not believe this account.
“You know what I think? I think now they will try to make my Dzhokhar guilty because they took away his voice, his ability to talk to the world… They did not want the truth to come out,” Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said.
She added that the only reason her sons were targeted was because they were Muslim, adding that she saw footage of Tamerlan Tsarnaev being killed “really cruelly”.
U.S. authorities are on their way to speak with Zubeidat Tsarnaeva in the aftermath of the bombings.
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Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, could be jailed if she returns to the US to see her hospitalized son, it has been revealed.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, 45, now lives in Dagestan, Russia
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a gunbattle with cops on Friday. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is in fair condition in a Boston hospital where he is being treated for injuries sustained in the same shootout.
ABC News reported on Tuesday that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva failed to show up at a court hearing stemming from a July 2012 arrest for shoplifting.
So if she returns to the US to visit her hospitalized son Dzhokhar or make burial arrangements for Tamerlan, she could be arrested on an outstanding warrant.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva allegedly stole $1,600 worth of clothes from a Massachusetts Lord & Taylor store.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, could be jailed if she returns to the US to see her hospitalized son
She was charged with two counts of malicious/wanton damage and defacement to property after allegedly swiping the merchandise from the retailer’s Natick, Massachusetts location in June 2012.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was due in court on October 25 last year for a hearing in the case, but never showed up.
The Lord & Taylor location is not the same as the one on Boyleston Street in Boston, where a surveillance camera captured what police say is her younger son dropping a pressure cooker bomb that was hidden inside a backpack.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva additionally faces questioning by US investigators, who have traveled to Dagestan to speak with her.
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