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Bella Tsarnaeva, sister of Boston Marathon bombings suspects Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, faces drugs charge in New Jersey.
Bella Tsarnaeva, 24, pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to possession of ma****ana with intent to distribute.
She was arrested in December 2012 after police responded to her Fairview home on a domestic violence report and found ma****ana, according to court papers. Authorities said they had first found her live-in boyfriend, Ahmad Khalil, at the apartment, which they searched after smelling marijuana.
Both Bella Tsarnaeva and Ahmad Khalil were indicted on April 10 with possession of ma****ana with intent to distribute.
They declined to comment on Tuesday after their arraignment in Superior Court, where their attorneys entered not-guilty pleas on their behalves.
Bella Tsarnaeva’s attorney, Mario Blanch, said he has applied for her to be admitted into a pretrial intervention program, a form of probation that allows certain defendants to resolve their cases without a criminal record.
Bella Tsarnaeva, sister of Boston Marathon bombings suspects faces drug charges in New Jersey
Bella Tsarnaeva later left the building, her head wrapped in Ahmad Khalil’s shirt to shield her from a photographer. Mario Blanch said Bella Tsarnaeva did not want to be photographed because people are already recognizing her on the streets and that she has even received death threats for what her brothers are accused of doing.
“She is a young woman, 24 years old, and through no fault of her own, she has been thrust into a public spotlight,” said her attorney Mario Blanch to North Jersey.com.
“This has been a huge tragedy for this country, and it has also been a huge tragedy for my client.”
The investigation extended into North Jersey within a few days after the Boston Marathon bombing when federal agents showed up at the West New York home of another sister, 22-year-old Ailina Tsarnaeva. The agents interviewed the woman for several hours and left with computers, cell phones and plastic bags full of items. West New York police later said the woman was cooperating with authorities.
Meanwhile, lawyers for her brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are set to blame the “overpowering influence” of elder brother Tamerlan, said Harvey Silverglate, a civil liberties and defense attorney.
According to Harvey Silvergate, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s lawyers will cite Tamerlan as being “an embittered and dangerous character, and it is well known that older siblings have tremendous power over younger siblings”.
One of the teenage bombers attorney is Judy Clarke, who represented “Unabomber” Ted Kaczynski and 1996 Atlanta Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph – in both cases using mental health as a defense.
Investigators of Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev case say that he travelled to the Russian republic of Dagestan in 2012 with the intent of joining a radical Islamist group, but he never followed through with his plan.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was shot dead during a police gun battle on April 19 after officials claim he and his 19-year-old brother, Dzhokahr, had set off two homemade bombs at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
In 202, officials say Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whom they described as a “typical lone wolf”, went to Dagestan after becoming radicalized in the US.
While staying abroad, however, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did not join the ranks of an international terror group, and it appears that the two brothers were acting of their own accord when they set off the deadly explosions, officials close to the matter told ABC News.
Investigators also found no manifesto written by Tamerlan Tamerlan while he was staying in Dagestan, which would have provided a clear motive for the attacks.
Similarly, no evidence was found so far to suggest that Tamerlan Tsarnaev reached out to Islamist leaders on his earlier trips to Chechnya to visit his father’s relatives.
During his recent visit to Dagestan, where his parents currently reside, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did make contact with Mahmud Mansur Nidal, who has been suspected of having militant ties, according to officials.
The two were frequently seen at a Salafist mosque in the capital of Makhachkala, which is popular among insurgents.
However, while Mahmud Mansur Nidal eventually ended up joining a radical Islamist organization in the southern Russian region, Tamerlan Tsarnaev did not follow him and later returned to the U.S.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev travelled to Dagestan in 2012 with the intent of joining a radical Islamist group, but he never followed through with his plan
Mahmud Mansur Nidal, a man who was both Palestinian and Kumyk, was killed in May 2012 after refusing to give himself up to security forces that had surrounded a house in Makhachkala, according to official police records.
An FBI probe has revealed that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had social networking ties with Muslim convert William Plotnikov, a Russian national from Canada, which brought Tsarnaev to the attention of Russian security services for the first time in late 2010.
William Plotnikov had been detained in Dagestan in December 2010 on suspicion of having ties to the militants and during his interrogation was forced to hand over a list of social networking friends from the U.S. and Canada who like him had once lived in Russia, Novaya Gazeta reported.
William Plotnikov was among seven suspected militants killed on July 14 during a standoff with police in the Dagestani village of Utamysh, according to the official police record.
After William Plotnikov’s death, Russian security agents lost track of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and went to see his father in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan, who told them that his son had returned to the U.S., Novaya Gazeta said.
The Russians later determined that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had flown to Moscow on July 16 and to the U.S. the following day, the newspaper said.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev arrived in New York on July 17.
Investigators also looked into Tamerlan Tsaranev’s relationship with a distant cousin with ties to extremists group, who is suspected of playing a role in the 26-year-old former boxer’s radicalization.
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 in Dagestan. Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, told TIME Magazine that the two kinsmen “became very close”.
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 after waving an Islamists flag during a wedding procession. His lawyer expects he will remain there for at least two more months.
Magomed Magomedov, another member of Union for the Just, told ABC News that he saw Tamerlan Tsarnaev on several occasions at the Makhachkala mosque, but the American transplant appeared out of place.
“He was sticking out, it was obvious he is not local. He liked to draw attention with his expensive and fancy clothes. His haircut was something no one has seen before,” he said.
According to some accounts, Tamerlan Tsarnaev would put on airs by claiming that he knew more about Islam than he actually did. In conversations with other congregants, he would often recite things he had picked up online in a bid to impress the locals, who grew annoyed with him.
But according to officials, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was not as strict a practitioner of Islam as he appeared to be.
According to one investigator, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, like his younger brother Dzhokhar, would often indulge in mar***ana while living in Massachusetts, spending hours high.
The FBI is to meet with nearly a dozen people who had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, including relatives, childhood friends and acquaintances from the mosque, hoping to shed light on the events that led to the bombings.
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Abdul-Baki Todashev, father of a Chechen immigrant Ibragim Todashev, who was shot dead by an FBI agent while being questioned about his ties to Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, said Thursday that he regrets allowing his son to go to the U.S.
Ibragim Todashev, 27, was a mixed martial arts fighter who had trained with Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Boston, and his father said they had bonded because of their shared interests and heritage as Chechens from southern Russia.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police days after the April 15 terrorist attack.
Ibragim Todashev was killed Wednesday after an altercation with an FBI agent during a meeting with the agent and two Massachusetts state troopers at his home in central Florida. Law enforcement officers say that during the meeting, he had implicated himself in an unsolved 2011 triple murder.
Abdul-Baki Todashev said he was worried that with his son was dead, the FBI could now pin any crime on him.
“Out of fear of the lawlessness in Chechnya, I sent him to the U.S., because it seemed like the safest country at the time,” the distraught father told the Associated Press.
“Now I’m thinking about how to bring home his body. As it turns out I sent him to his death.”
Abdul-Baki Todashev said his son Ibragim, who has a previous arrest for aggravated battery after he left a man unconscious following a fight over a park spot, is “not capable” of killing anyone.
“There is a clear picture emerging that this is all fabricated,” Abdul-Baki Todashev told the Boston Globe.
“They killed my son and then they made up a reason to explain it.”
Friends and family members of the 2011 murder victims reacted to news of Ibragim Todashev’s alleged confession on social media.
On a Facebook memorial for victim Raphael Teken, the moderator of the page wrote: “Whether we ever know exactly what happened, there is one thing we surely know and that is that Rafi deserved a much better fate.
“He was funny, kind, joyful and generous.
“All of us that knew him knew [his death] couldn’t have been about anything he did, but are now horrified by what it may have been about.”
Facebook user Tony Porter wrote: “I’m disappointed that we will never really get to experience true justice for our friend or know the reasons for what happened despite the fact that both alleged suspects are now deceased.
“I don’t know how you are supposed to feel when your friend’s killer gets killed, but I don’t feel <<relieved>> like I thought I would.”
Moderators of a Facebook memorial for victim Erik Weissman wrote: “Hoping for some closure” and posted a photo of him with the caption: “Forever young, forever beautiful, forever in our hearts.”
Ibragim Todashev was shot dead by an FBI agent while being questioned about his ties to Boston suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev
A friend who said he went to high school with Erik Weissman commented: “That playful grin is the Erik that will live on in my memory… Let’s hope [this] represents at least a small step towards some kind of <<closure>> – if that even exits – for his nearest and dearest.”
Ibragim Todashev’s estranged wife, Reniya Manukyan, denied her husband’s alleged involvement in the 2011 triple murder, but she noted that he did travel back to Boston in the summer of that year.
He “had nothing to hide”, she told ABC News.
“He wasn’t involved. So he was not even nervous [to talk with the FBI].”
Reniya Manukyan and her husband separated in November. She said they lived in Atlanta before moving to Orlando in late 2011.
She also said that agents had questioned her several times and even stopped her at the airport when she returned from a trip to Chechnya several weeks after the Boston bombings.
Abdul-Baki Todashev said his son – the second of 12 children – was at university when he got an opportunity to go to the U.S. to study English about five or six years ago. He said he later agreed to his son’s request to remain in the U.S. “because it seemed like the safest country”.
Chechnya has been ravaged by two wars between separatist fighters and Russian federal troops since 1994, and remains troubled by periodic outbreaks of violence. The family’s red-brick house on the outskirts of Grozny, the Chechen capital, still bears the marks of shrapnel.
Abdul-Baki Todashev said his son gave up martial arts because of an injury and later held a number of jobs, including as a driver at a retirement home, before moving to Florida within the last year. The father said Ibragim had planned to come to Chechnya this week to visit his extended family, but was asked by the FBI to delay his trip.
Abdul-Baki Todashev said he had learned of his son’s death from a phone call from one of his son’s friends, who also had been questioned by the FBI. He said the friend, whom he didn’t name, told him that both of them had been pressured to confess to the murders, but that they were innocent.
The FBI gave no details on why it was interested in Ibragim Todashev except to say that he was being questioned as part of the Boston investigation. However, two officials briefed on the investigation said he had implicated himself as having been involved in a 2011 triple murder in a Boston suburb; investigators now suspect that Tamerlan Tsarnaev may have been involved in the unsolved crime.
Law enforcement officials believe, partly based on Ibragim Todashev’s alleged confession, that Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev carried out the 2011 killings after a drug deal turned violent. The suspects didn’t want the three victims to be able to identify them, so they s**t their throats, sources told NBC.
Authorities had gone to Ibragim Todashev’s home late Tuesday with evidence suggesting that Todashev, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and Tsarnaev’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, were involved in the 2011 killings, according to reports.
No suspects had been arrested in that case, in which three men were found in an apartment in Waltham, Massachusetts on the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks with their throats cut and marijuana covering their bodies.
Massachusetts investigators had reported earlier this month that they were uncovering “mounting evidence” that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, were involved in the sl**ing. One of the victims, Brendan Mess, was a close friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s.
Authorities said they have no reason to believe that Ibragim Todashev had any involvement in the Boston Marathon bombings.
The FBI has been investigating Ibragim Todashev for the last month, questioning him several times regarding his ties to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police in a shootout following the deadly April 15 marathon bombings. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged in connection with the bombings and is being held at a prison medical center outside Boston.
Khusen Taramov, a friend of Ibragim Todashev’s, confirmed that Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev knew each other. He said they had been in contact via phone or Skype about a week before the bombings.
Ibragim Todashev was arrested in an unrelated incident on May 4 for aggravated battery after he left a man unconscious in the parking lot of a shopping mall.
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Ibragim Todashev, friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, implicated himself and Tamerlan in a 2011 triple slaying just before he was killed by an FBI agent early Wednesday, NBC and CBS News are reporting.
Authorities were pressuring Chechan immigrant Ibragim Todashev, 27, to make a full confession to the murders when he suddenly turned violent, according to CBS. An FBI agent responded by firing his weapon and killing Ibragim Todashev.
The incident happened at Ibragim Todashev’s Orlando apartment, not far from Universal Studios. Initially, authorities claimed that Ibragim Todashev had lunged at the agent with a knife, but they later backtracked, saying it was no longer clear whether he was armed.
Law enforcement sources tell NBC that Ibragim Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev carried out the 2011 killings when a drug deal that turned violent. The suspects didn’t want the three victims to be able to identify them, so they slit their throats, according to the network.
Authorities had gone to Ibragim Todashev’s home late Tuesday with evidence suggesting that Todashev, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and Tsarnaev’s younger brother, Dzhokhar, were involved in the 2011 killings.
No suspects had been arrested in that case, in which three men were found in an apartment in Waltham, Massachusetts on the tenth anniversary of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks with their throats cut and marijuana covering their bodies.
Massachusetts investigators had reported earlier this month that they were uncovering “mounting evidence” that Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, were involved in the slaying. One of the victims, Brendan Mess, was a close friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s.
Authorities said they have no reason to believe that Ibragim Todashev had any involvement in the marathon bombings.
Friends and family members of the 2011 murder victims reacted to news of the alleged confession on social media.
On a Facebook page dedicated to victim Raphael Teken, someone wrote: “Whether we ever know exactly what happened, there is one thing we surely know and that is that Rafi deserved a much better fate.”
Ibragim Todashev implicated himself and Tamerlan Tsaranaev in a 2011 triple slaying just before he was killed by an FBI
“He was funny, kind, joyful and generous,” the message continued.
“All of us that knew him knew [his death] couldn’t have been about anything he did, but are now horrified by what it may have been about.”
Facebook user Tony Porter wrote: “I’m disappointed that we will never really get to experience true justice for our friend or know the reasons for what happened despite the fact that both alleged suspects are now deceased.
“I don’t know how you are supposed to feel when your friend’s killer gets killed, but I don’t feel <<relieved>> like I thought I would.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, confirmed to the New York Times on Wednesday that her older son knew Ibragim Todashev.
In a telephone interview from Dagestan, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said Ibragim Todashev moved from Boston to Florida about two years ago. She said she is devastated to learn that he has been killed.
“Now another boy has left this life,” she told the newspaper.
“Why are they killing these children without any trial or investigation?”
The FBI has been investigating Ibragim Todashev for the last month, questioning him several times regarding his ties to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police in a shootout following the deadly April 15 marathon bombings. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged in connection with the bombings and is being held at a prison medical center outside Boston.
Khusen Taramov, a friend of Ibragim Todashev’s, confirmed that Todashev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev knew each other. He said they had been in contact via phone or Skype about a week before the bombings.
In an interview with Orlando television station WESH, Khusen Taramov said that the two met while Ibragim Todashev was living in Boston because they were both involved in mixed martial arts and boxing.
Ibragim Todashev “wasn’t like real close friends [with Tamerlan Tsarnaev], but he just happened to know him”, Khusen Taramov said.
“But he had no idea that they were up to something like that, like bombings and everything, you know what I mean?”
Khusen Taramov says the FBI has been following him and Ibragim Todashev since the bombings. He said that they were both being interviewed by agents late Tuesday before Ibragim Todashev was killed.
Ibragim Todashev was arrested in an unrelated incident on May 4 for aggravated battery after he left a man unconscious in the parking lot of a shopping mall.
According to the arrest affidavit, Ibragim Todashev had gotten into an altercation with a man and his son over parking space.
Ibragim Todashev told police that the man “got into his face” so he pushed him and then the man’s son “got involved” and Todashev began fighting him.
“Todashev said he was only fighting to protect his knee because he had surgery in March,” the affidavit states.
A mall security officer arrived on scene to find the son unconscious and lying in a pool of blood on the ground just as Ibragim Todashev was pulling away in a white Mercedes.
The officer chased down the Mercedes, ordered Ibragim Todashev out at gunpoint and arrested him.
The son was later treated at a hospital with a split upper lip, several teeth knocked out and head injuries.
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Chechen Ibragim Todashev has been shot dead by an FBI agent in Orlando, Florida, early Wednesday during questioning related to the Boston Marathon bombings.
The shooting happened just after midnight Wednesday at 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev’s apartment complex near Universal studios, FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier confirmed.
“The agent encountered the suspect while conducting official duties,” Dave Couvertier said.
“We do not have any further details at this time. We expect to have more information later this morning.”
An FBI post-shooting incident review team has been dispatched from Washington, D.C. and is expected to arrive in Orlando within 24 hours, he said.
Former FBI assistant director John Miller, who now works for CBS News, said the FBI was trying to question Ibragim Todashev at his apartment over his ties to Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev when “something went wrong”.
Chechen Ibragim Todashev has been shot dead by an FBI agent in Orlando
The suspect reportedly attacked the agent, who then fired his weapon and killed Ibragim Todashev.
The FBI had questioned Ibragim Todashev in the past regarding his ties to 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed by police in a shootout following the April 15 bombings. His younger brother, Dzhokar Tsarnaev, 19, has been charged in connection with the bombings and is being held at a prison medical center outside Boston.
Khusen Taramov, a friend of Ibragim Todashev, confirmed that he knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev and had been in contact with him via phone or Skype about a week before the bombings.
In an interview with Orlando television station WESH, he said that the two met while Ibragim Todashev was living in Boston because they were both involved in mixed martial arts and boxing.
Khusen Taramov says the FBI has been following him and Ibragim Todashev since the bombings. He said that they were both being interviewed by agents late Monday night.
He claims his friend is innocent and that he has been targeted by authorities because he is a Muslim.
“He was just a Muslim, that was his mistake, I guess,” Khusen Taramov, also a Muslim, told WESH.
Shortly before the shooting, Ibragim Todashev “had a bad feeling. He felt there’s going to be a set-up against him,” he said.
Ibragim Todashev gave him phone numbers for his mother and father late Monday just in case he got “locked up”.
“We had a feeling that a worse-case scenario, that something like [a shooting] is going to happen,” Khusn Taramiv told the television station.
In an unrelated incident, Ibragim Todashev was arrested May 5 for aggravated battery following a fight in a parking lot.
The nurses who treated Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have told how they could not stop themselves from soothing him with the words: “I am really sorry, hon.”
Medical staff said that just like any other patient they were reflexively affectionate to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev they “did not see as a terrorist”.
Torn by a mixture of emotions, they made a pact to be unemotional around him as they struggled to reconcile their professional obligations with personal disgust.
Interviews with the nurse show how hard it was to treat somebody who has been accused of being behind the bombings that went off during the Boston Marathon last month.
The explosions left three dead and more than 265 injured, some of whom were taken to the Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ended up too after being caught in a shootout with police that killed his brother 26-year-old Tamerlan.
There the nurses found their requirement to treat anybody regardless of their background was tested to the absolute limit.
Speaking to the Boston Globe, seven of the women spoke about caring for him but did not want to give their full names for fear of a backlash from the community.
While moving Dzhokhar Tsarnaev one day a nurse called Irene found herself saying: “I am really sorry, hon.”
She and another nurse called Marie agreed to tell each other if they were using terms of endearment towards him by accident.
The nurses who treated Dzhokhar Tsarnaev have told how they could not stop themselves from soothing him
Marie said: “You see a hurt 19-year-old and you can’t help but feel sorry for him.”
She added that she would “not be upset if he (Dzhokhar Tsarnaev) got the death penalty”.
Marie said: “There is no way to reconcile the two different feelings.”
The night Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was brought in would have been particularly vexing for Beth Israel as doctors were still looking after 24 bombing victims, some of whom were on the same floor as the suspect.
Victims’ families had to walk past an area with armed guards where the man who allegedly maimed their relatives was being held, just so they could see their loved ones.
Nurse Julie Benbenishty, director of trauma at the hospital, said: “Many of the support staff, the cleaners, and families of other patients will say: <<Why are you giving him pain medication?>>
“They might be angry at us for turning him and washing him and for doing what we are really supposed to do.
“After about a half-hour, I don’t see him as a terrorist anymore.”
As the night went on medics were reminded of their obligations under the Hippocratic Oath, and FBI investigators told them: “You need to keep this person alive. We need information. We need justice.”
A 29-year-old nurse said that when she was unsure if she could treat Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, her husband told her: “You have to do it. You have to do it so we can get answers.”
Michele, 29, a nurse who was one of those who cared for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, said that when she was in the room with him he was “just a patient”.
She said: “You’re here to… make sure they’re feeling better.
“When you step away, you take it in. I am compassionate, that’s what we do. But should I be?
“The rest of the world hates him right now. The emotions are like one big salad, all tossed around.”
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Katherine Russell Tsarnaev’s new lawyer, Joshua Dratel, insists that the Boston Marathon bombing suspect’s widow will co-operate with the investigation into the terrorist atrocity.
Joshua Dratel, who has represented several terrorism suspects, joined the legal team of Katherine Russell, who was married to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, last week.
Katherine Russell has not been accused of any wrongdoing, but the FBI are currently interrogating her to find out if she had any clue as to her husband’s plans.
The bombing at the marathon’s finish line on April 15 killed three people and injured more than 260.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev’s new lawyer Joshua Dratel insists that she will co-operate with the investigation into the terrorist atrocity
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger brother Dzhokhar, originally from Chechnya, are believed to have carried out the attacks due to their radical jihadist beliefs.
Joshua Dratel, from New York, today said that he joined Katherine Russell’s legal team to help her navigate the criminal justice system and to protect her interests.
He said she had spoken with investigators and planned to keep co-operating.
“I don’t see that changing in the foreseeable future,” he said.
“There’s no inconsistency between that and her interests at this point.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is in a prison hospital facing charges that could bring the death penalty. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died on April 19 after a shootout with police.
Katherine Russell, 24, had been living in Cambridge, Massachusetts with her husband and two-year-old daughter, but has been staying with her parents in North Kingstown, Rhode Island, since the day her husband was killed.
She has reverted to using her maiden name, switching from her married name of Tsarnaeva.
Among the questions about Katherine Russell is what she knew or saw in the weeks leading up to the bombing, and in the days after it.
Two U.S. officials have said that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators the bombs were assembled in the small apartment Katherine Russell shared with her husband.
One of her lawyers has previously said Katherine Russell was working long hours and was frequently away from the apartment.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s burial in Virginia is legal, according to the county sheriff.
Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was buried at a Doswell cemetery last Thursday, angering some in the community after it was claimed that authorities were not consulted about the Muslim burial.
Neighbors of the cemetery have argued that a police presence will be needed at the cemetery while Caroline County officials investigated whether the burial had been done properly and legally.
Caroline County Sheriff Tony Lippa said in a statement that the official paperwork including the death certificate and burial permit were in order.
Tony Lippa said: “It would appear that all paperwork is in order at this point.
“Like the rest of America, the citizens of this county were outraged by the Boston Marathon Bombings. We too mourned for the loss of life, prayed for the survivors, and offered our support.
“Unfortunately we now find ourselves forever connected to this tragedy in the most unsavory way – as the final resting place of one of the alleged terrorist.”
The sheriff’s office will provide the same amount of protection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s burial site as any other cemetery in Caroline County.
The statement said: “The Caroline County Sheriff’s Office cannot, nor will we, divert our limited resources towards the protection of a single gravesite, especially one belonging to that of a terrorist.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried at a Doswell cemetery, angering some in the community after it was claimed that authorities were not consulted about the Muslim burial
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s remains were rejected by cemeteries in many cities for fear of desecration and demonstrations.
Sheriff Tony Lippa said last week that he learned of the burial from the media and added that the county does not have the money to provide security and that it will be the cemetery’s responsibility.
The cemetery director told MyFoxBoston that he is not concerned about adding security and added that Doswell is a close community.
He also shared details of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s burial, saying he was buried in a small ceremony Thursday morning after being draped in three white sheets and laid on his right side to face Mecca.
The cemetery director declined to say who was in attendance.
The decision to bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the small Islamic cemetery in rural Virginia has also sparked fury some members of the area’s Islamic community, who say they weren’t consulted, according to the Associated Press.
Imam Ammar Amonette, of the Islamic Center of Virginia, said that his group was never consulted.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried under a shroud of secrecy Wednesday evening at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in central Virginia, about 15 miles from Richmond.
Martha Mullen, a professional counselor who has a degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, said she coordinated the clandestine burial with the help of the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond after a number of cemeteries refused to take his body.
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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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Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s death certificate, which was released on Friday, showed that he was shot in the firefight and then run over and dragged by a vehicle.
Police say it was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who mowed over his brother’s body as he was making a getaway.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s death certificate showed that he was shot in the firefight and then run over and dragged by a vehicle
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was buried under a shroud of secrecy Wednesday evening at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in central Virginia, about 15 miles from Richmond, with the help of Christian Martha Mullen.
The Tsarnaev brothers are accused of carrying out the April 15 twin bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a violent shootout with police on April 19 and his brother, who was injured in the gunfight, was captured in Watertown, Massachusetts after an 18-hour manhunt.
His body was claimed by his uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who asked that the remains be placed in a municipal cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Tamerlan Tsarnaev lived with his wife, Katherine Russell. But city officials would not allow that to happen.
Katherine Russell did not claim the body, which is why it was released to Ruslan Tsarni.
The public was not notified that Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body had been moved until after it was transported from the funeral home Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, police officials announced that: “A courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased.”
On average, burials cost $6,000 to $10,000, which covers basic services of a funeral director and staff, including the casket as well as embalming and sanitation of the body, according to the Funeral Consumer Guardian Society, a consumer advocacy group.
Typically, the person who claims the body – which in this case would be Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle – pays these costs.
“Mounting evidence” gathered by investigators suggest Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev could have been involved in a grisly unsolved triple murder in 2011, it has emerged on Friday.
Officials told ABC News that forensic evidence could tie Boston bomber brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to the killings of Brendan Mess, Raphael Teken and Erik Weissman, who were found with their throats slit and marijuana dumped over their dead bodies in a Waltham, Massachusetts house.
The Tsarnaev brothers knew the men as Tamerlan trained in boxing and martial arts with Brendan Mass.
However, officials said more DNA testing is required before bringing an indictment against the surviving brother, Dzhokhar Tsaranaev, who is recovering from a self-inflicted gun wound in a prison infirmary.
Following the April 15 bombings and the suspected involvement of the Tsarnaev brothers, investigators began to look into the link between Tamerlan and Brendan Mess.
Forensic evidence could tie Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to the killings of Brendan Mess and other two men, who were found with their throats slit and marijuana dumped over their dead bodies in a Waltham house
Authorities have now told ABC that forensic evidence from the crime scene in 2011 matches the Tsarnaev brothers. Their cell phones were also in the area at the time of the killings, records show.
The three men had ordered food from an Italian restaurant on the September 11, 2011, but when a delivery woman came to leave the food, no one answered the door.
The next morning, one of the victim’s girlfriends found their bodies.
Their throats had been slit, they have been covered with marijuana and there was also $5,000 cash in the home.
Initially police said two other people had been there on the day and they were looking to question them, although no one has ever been charged.
There had been no forced entry, so police believe the killer was known the victim and was let into the apartment.
Investigators at the time said the murders were “targeted and not a random act of violence”.
Middlesex District Attorney Gerard Leone issued a statement soon after the murders saying, “based on the present state of the investigation, it is believed that the victims knew the assailant or assailants, and the attacks were not random”.
Neighbors described Brendan Mess and his two roommates as quiet, nice people who were a welcome change of pace from previous residents who often had loud parties late into the evening.
After the deaths, friends said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev acted oddly – failing to attend his close friend’s funeral and dropping out of the martial arts school where they had both trained.
One man who knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev through the gym where they trained said some of their social circle “without even speaking about it beforehand have all been thinking” he could be involved.
The friend, who gave his name only as Ray, told BuzzFeed Politics: “At the time, none of us would have thought it was Tam. It was just so emotional and we thought we had someone else who had done it.”
But since Tamerlan Tsarnaev was identified as the suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three and injured 260, Ray believes his sudden disappearance after Brendan Mess’s death may be a clue.
“Tam wasn’t there at the memorial service, he wasn’t at the funeral, he wasn’t around at all,” Ray said.
“And he was really close with Brendan. That’s why it’s so weird.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed following a gun battle with police, a day after the FBI released images of him and his younger brother at the Boston Marathon.
His brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar, was found hiding in a boat parked in a suburban yard and suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the neck.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is now recovering and has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction.
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Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in Al-Barzakh Muslim cemetery in Doswell, Virignia with the help of Martha Mullen who was upset by protests outside the funeral home where his body was being held.
Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was buried under a shroud of secrecy Wednesday evening at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in central Virginia, about 15 miles from Richmond, the Boston Globe first reported.
Martha Mullen, 48, of Richmond, Virginia, coordinated the clandestine burial with the help of the Islamic Society of Greater Richmond after a number of cemeteries refused to take Tamaerlan Tsarnaev’s body.
In an exclusive interview with the Boston Globe‘s Wesley Lowery, Martha Mullen said: “Jesus says [to] love our enemies.
“So I was sitting in Starbucks and thought, maybe I’m the one person who needs to do something.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was buried under a shroud of secrecy Wednesday evening at the Al-Barzakh Cemetery in central Virginia, about 15 miles from Richmond
News of the burial comes several days after a Massachusetts police chief went on national television to plead for help in finding a burial place for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose body was being held at a Worcester funeral home that became the site of ongoing protests.
“There is a need to do the right thing,” Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme said.
“We are not barbarians. We bury the dead.”
Martha Mullen, a professional counselor who has a degree from United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio, called the Boston Globe wanting to tell her story, according to the reporter who took the call. She told the newspaper that the protests upset her and “portrayed America at its worst”.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his 19-year-old brother Dzokhar Tsarnaev are accused of carrying out the April 15 twin bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260. Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a violent shootout with police on April 19 and his brother, who was injured in the gunfight, was captured in Watertown, Massachusetts after an 18-hour manhunt.
His body was claimed by his uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, who asked that the remains be placed in a municipal cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Tamerlan Tsarnaev lived with his wife, Katherine Russell. But city officials would not allow that to happen.
Katherine Russell did not claim the body, which is why it was released to Ruslan Tsarni.
The bombers’ mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who maintains that her sons are innocent, wanted Tamerlan’s body sent back to Russia, where he was born, but there was no certainty that Russian officials would accept the remains.
As authorities continued searching for a plot to bury the remains, they were repeatedly turned away. No one wanted to take responsibility for the body. Meanwhile, protests continued outside the funeral home where the body was being held.
The public was not notified that Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body had been moved until after it was transported from the funeral home Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, police officials announced that: “A courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased.”
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, the widow of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has retained legal counsel Joshua Dratel, who has an extensive client roster of suspected and convicted terrorists.
Katherine Russell added attorney Joshua Dratel to her legal team, her Rhode Island-based lawyer Amato DeLuca said on Wednesday.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev has retained legal counsel Joshua Dratel, who has an extensive client roster of suspected and convicted terrorists
New York lawyer Joshua Dratel, whose office in Downtown Manhattan is just blocks away from Ground Zero, previously defended Guantanamo Bay detainees and suspects in the bombings of the U.S. embassies in East Africa.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, 24, has been under increased scrutiny ever since federal officials found radical Islamist materials on her laptop, including the al Qaeda magazine Inspire.
Investigators also found traces of explosive residue in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, home Katherine Russell had shared with her late husband Tamerlan Tsarnaev and their 3-year-old daughter, Zahara.
Katherine Russell’s defense team said in a statement that she “plans to continue to meet with investigators, part of a series of meetings over many hours where she has answered questions”.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators that Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, the widow of his late older brother Tamerlan, had nothing to do with the April 15 Boston Marathon attacks, it was revealed today.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has made the statement to law enforcement officials looking into Katherine Russell’s possible involvement in the planning of the bombings allegedly carried out by her husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and her brother-in-law, NBC News reported.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a police gun battle on April 19. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, was captured and charged in connection to the bombings following a massive manhunt that ended when he was discovered wounded hiding inside a boat in a backyard.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told investigators that Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, the widow of his late older brother Tamerlan, had nothing to do with the April 15 Boston Marathon attacks
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, 24, has been under increased scrutiny ever since federal officials found radical Islamist materials on her laptop, including the al Qaeda magazine Inspire.
Investigators also found traces of explosive residue in the Cambridge, Massachusetts, home Katherine Russell had shared with her late husband and their daughter.
Katherine Russell’s defense team said in a statement that she “plans to continue to meet with investigators, part of a series of meetings over many hours where she has answered questions”.
It was also revealed Wednesday that the 24-year-old Muslim convert has hired a prominent criminal lawyer with experience defending terrorism cases.
Katherine Russell added New York lawyer Joshua Dratel to her legal team, her attorney Amato DeLuca confirmed.
Joshua Dratel has represented a number of terrorism suspects in federal courts and military commissions, including Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, detainee David Hicks, who attended an al-Qaida-linked training camp in Afghanistan.
Nadine Ascencao, the former girlfriend of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, revealed he slapped her and beat her head against a car because she was wearing shorts.
Nadine Ascencao, 25, of Cambridge, Massachusetts, said she and Tamerlan Tsarnaev split up after he became so abusive she called police.
The couple dated for three years and she said he became increasingly religious during that time.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar, 19, set off the bomb at the marathon on April 15 that killed three by-standers and injured more than 260 people.
The Boston suspect was killed in a stand-off with police four days later and his young brother is in police custody after being injured in the same shoot-out.
Nadine Ascencao told Inside Edition that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a former amateur boxer, attacked her after she wore a tank top and shorts to a pool party.
Nadine Ascencao, the former girlfriend of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, revealed he slapped her and beat her head against a car because she was wearing shorts
She said he screamed at her “what are you wearing” and then became violent.
Nadine Ascencao said: “He literally grabbed my jaw and he was telling me <<you are not going to wear this, do you understand what I’m saying>> and he kept pushing my head until I hit the car and it hurt and that made me really upset and he just slapped me across the face. But that right there just made me so furious.”
She said she told she was going to dial 911 and he told her to “go ahead”.
Nadine Ascencao said in the interview with Inside Edition: “The police officer goes up to him and she said, <<did you hit her?>>
“He goes, <<I just gave her a little slap>>. She goes <<excuse me what did you just do to her?>>
“[He said] I just gave her a little slap.
“She said, <<turn around sir>> and just handcuffed him.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was arrested on domestic assault and battery charges and the mugshots later emerged after he was identified as the suspect in the bomb attack.
However, despite the violent outburst Nadine Ascencao did not press charges, which she says she now regrets.
Nadine Ascencao said: “At that time I was young and really didn’t think it through.”
In previous interviews, Nadine Ascencao said then boyfriend Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who she met at high school, became increasingly religious and was angered if she wore Western clothes.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev later went on to marry Katherine Russell, who converted to Islam.
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Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in a secret midnight service at an undisclosed location after a mystery benefactor came forward – ending weeks of controversy.
According to federal officials, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was taken from the Graham Putnam & Mahoney Funeral Parlor and entombed under cover of darkness outside of the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, where his remains have laid since last Friday.
The burial location was approved by Ruslan Tsarni, the Boston Marathon suspects’ outspoken uncle, who has been attempting to find a cemetery that would accept his nephew for burial.
“As a result of our public appeal for help a courageous and compassionate individual came forward to provide the assistance needed to properly bury the deceased,” said Worcester police in a statement this morning.
“His body is no longer in the city of Worcester and is now entombed.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was finally buried one day after Worcester Police Chief Gary Gemme pleaded for help in burying the suspect – who was killed in a firefight with police on April 19th in Watertown, just outside of Boston.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev has been buried in a secret midnight service at an undisclosed location after a mystery benefactor came forward
“There is a need to do the right thing,” said Gary Gemme.
“We are not barbarians. We bury the dead.”
The statement did not say where his body now rests.
Peter Stefan, the director of the funeral home had previously expressed his strong desire to find a proper burial site for Tamerlan Tsarnaev despite protests outside the funeral home and the refusal of Cambridge to take his body for burial.
Before today’s announcement, a retired Vermont school teacher, Paul Keane had yesterday offered up his family’s plot in Hamden, Connecticut.
He intended the offer to be a tribute to his mother, who taught him to, “love thine enemy”.
Paul Keane told reporters that he didn’t withdraw the offer, even after he received hate-mail – but no one from Worcester contacted him.
And the firm responsible for digging graves at the Mount Carmel Cemetery said that they have dug no fresh graves this week.
And on Monday, the founder of the organization that built Colorado’s largest mosque is offered to bury suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a Denver-area Muslim cemetery.
Sheikh Abu-Omar Almubarac said he would pay for a traditional Muslim burial – no headstone, monument or casket – at a plot at a Muslim cemetery in Denver or Bennett.
He refused to say which one out of concern for “undue publicity”. He said he would bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev as long as his family can get the body to Denver.
It is not known whether the family of Tamerlan Tsarnaev took him up on that offer.
Sgt. Kerry Hazelhurst with the Worcester police force said the body was no longer in Worcester and is now entombed. She did not disclose where the body was taken.
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Sheikh Abu-Omar Al-mubarac, founder of the organization that built Colorado’s largest mosque, is offering to bury suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a Denver-area Muslim cemetery.
Sheikh Abu-Omar Al-mubarac said he will pay for a traditional Muslim burial – no headstone, monument or casket – at a plot at a Muslim cemetery in Denver or Bennett.
He refused to say which one out of concern for “undue publicity”. He says he’ll bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev as long as his family can get the body to Denver.
Sheikh Abu-Omar Al-mubarac incorporated the Colorado Muslim Society in the late 1960s but made his offer independently of the organization. He says only God can judge Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
However, the Colorado Muslim Society issued a statement on Monday night distancing itself from its founder, Sheikh Abu-Omar Al-mubarac.
“It has recently been reported that the Colorado Muslim Society has offered to provide burial services for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the individuals who perpetrated the grave and destructive bombings at the 2013 Boston Marathon.
“This report is absolutely untrue. The individual who has reportedly made this offer does not speak on behalf of the Colorado Muslim Society,” the statement says.
It continues: “The Colorado Muslim Society strongly condemns all acts of violence and grieves with all of America after the attacks in Boston.
Sheikh Abu-Omar Al-mubarac is offering to bury Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a Denver-area Muslim cemetery
“The conduct of Tamerlan Tsarnaev is abhorrent and contrary to every principle and belief that underlies the purpose of the Colorado Muslim Society.”
The Colorado Muslim Society’s general counsel Qusair Mohamedbhai told The Denver Post: “We would never, ever do something like that – offer to bury someone who has committed an extreme act of violence against this country.”
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle Ruslan Tsarni, of Montgomery Village, Maryland, has been unable to bury his nephew in Massachusetts because of protests.
The funeral director who currently has the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in his possession has made a plea to the State Department to help him settle what will happen with the remains.
The city of Cambridge, where the suspected bombers lived prior to the attack, refused to bury the body.
Peter Stefan, whose business in Worcester, Massachusetts has been picketed by protesters, said that everyone deserves a dignified burial.
The impasse over 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body came as a local man started a fundraising campaign to have the alleged terrorist’s body returned to his family in Russia.
William Breault, from Worcester, has kick-started the campaign with $500 to send the body back to Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s parents.
Peter Stefan said on Monday that he understood the reluctance to deal with the remains following the atrocious attacks last month.
However he told NBC: “Everyone wants him sent back to Russia. I’m gonna get on the phone with the necessary people and say, <<We need help with this>>.”
He added: “It also makes us look bad. In this country, we bury people. We don’t leave them hanging around.”
Peter Stefan said that he believed that alleged terrorist’s family wants his body returned to Russia. Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s mother Zubeidat Tsarnaeva has repeatedly claimed that her son’s were framed for the Boston bombing.
A State Department spokesman said that Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s family should contact the Russian Consulate for help while Massachusetts Governor Patrick Deval called the burial a “family issue”.
Cambridge city manager Robert Healy said on Sunday that Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was not welcomed in one of its cemeteries.
“I have determined that it is not in the best interest of peace within the city to execute a cemetery deed for a plot within the Cambridge Cemetery for the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev,” Robert Healey said.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle Ruslan Tsarni visited the funeral home over the weekend to claim his nephew’s body.
Ruslan Tsarni chose to step in, he said, because “no one wants to associate their names with such evil events” and because religion and tradition call for his nephew to be buried.
Every cemetery in Massachusetts has turned down the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev but Peter Stefan remains insistent that this death be handled like any other.
He has also reached out unsuccessfully to cemeteries in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Some protesters outside the funeral home believe the bombing suspect should be buried at sea, similar to what was done with the body of Osama bin Laden.
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Cambridge, Massachusetts, where the Boston Marathon bombers lived prior to their terror attack, has announced they will not allow dead suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body to be buried there, it was revealed Sunday.
City manager Robert Healy said Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body was not welcomed in one of its cemeteries.
Cambridge, MA, has announced they will not allow dead suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body to be buried there
“I have determined that it is not in the best interest of peace within the city to execute a cemetery deed for a plot within the Cambridge Cemetery for the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev,” Robert Healey said.
The news comes as Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, arrived in the Bay State to claim his nephew’s body and prepare for a funeral.
Meanwhile funeral director Peter Stefan, whose business is being protested and has turned away by every cemetery, is determined with burying Tamerlan Tamerlan’s body, saying everyone deserves a dignified burial regardless of the circumstances of their death.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, widow of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, enjoyed a fast food lunch with her daughter on Sunday as federal officials continue to investigate whether she had any involvement in the deadly terrorist attacks.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, 24, laughed and chatted with a friend at a branch of the Mexican fast-food chain Chipotle along with her 3-year-old daughter, Zahara.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev laughed and chatted with a friend at Mexican fast-food Chipotle along with her 3-year-old daughter, Zahara
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow appeared relaxed and carefree as she ordered at the counter before carrying a soda and bag of food to her car from the restaurant close to her home in Warwick, Rhode Island.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev was likely trailed by undercover FBI agents in an unmarked car as officials remain suspicious about how much she knows relating to the planning and production of the pressure cooker bombs.
Her casual outing came as federal investigators revealed that they had discovered radical Islamist materials on her computer and the fact that she will not reveal what she spoke to her husband Tamerlan Tsarnaev about when they had a phone conversation on the night that his photo was released by the FBI.
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A photo of dead Boston bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev at the morgue emerged on the Internet via the popular social sharing site Reddit just hours after he passed away on April 19.
The extremely graphic image was posted by user nfieldflyer on Friday, under the title “Suspect #1 … in the morgue. NSFW.”
The user claims the photo was obtained by a “friend” who works downtown. Typical for images posted to Reddit, the photo itself is being hosted on Imgur.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts on April 19
As far as the photo’s authenticity, law enforcement sources have confirmed to TMZ that the image is real. One source told the website that authorities are investigating to determine who leaked the photo.
At one point, the image even managed to break through and reach the front page of Reddit, but apparently was pushed off.
For those who want details, but do not want to view the image, the picture shows the corpse of the 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev lying on what appears to be a morgue table.
Multiple bullet wounds can be seen, as well as a large gash along the left side of his chest in the area of his rib cage. According to specialists, the large wound is a thoracotomy, an evidence of an emergency procedure to restart his heart. Iodine traces being evident around the wound’s perimeter .
The body is covered in blood, particularly on his face. His mouth and both eyes are wide open.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown, Massachusetts on April 19.
While Peter Stefan’s funeral home in Worcester, Massachusetts, is being protested, the owner says he is desperate for a gravesite as cemeteries all refuse to take Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s body.
However, a determined funeral director charged with burying the body of the Boston bomber says everyone deserves a dignified burial regardless of the circumstances of their death.
Peter Stefan said dozens of protesters have gathered outside the Graham, Putnam& Mahoney Funeral Parlors, upset with his decision to handle the service.
“My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don’t want to do it. They don’t want to be involved with this,” Peter Stefan said.
“I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those, too.”
Every cemetery in Massachusetts has turned down the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Peter Stefan told Fox News, but he remains insistent that this death be handled like any other. It is also understood that Peter Stefan has reached out unsuccessfully to cemeteries in New Jersey and Connecticut.
Peter Stefan firmly intended to provide Tamerlan Tsarnaev with tradition Muslim funeral rites, which some protestors take issue with.
It was unclear who, if any, among the deceased’s family would step in to ensure the rites – such as the ritual bathing and shrouding of the body – were undertaken according to the religion’s traditions.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, arrived in Worcester from his Maryland home to take care of the burial arrangements
Then, on Sunday, Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, arrived in Worcester from his Maryland home to take care of the arrangements.
Ruslan Tsarni chose to step in, he said, because “no one wants to associate their names with such evil events” and because religion and tradition call for his nephew to be buried.
“I’m dealing with logistics,” he said.
“A dead person must be buried.”
Ruslan Tsarni and three of his friends met with Peter Stefan Sunday afternoon.
Some picketers believe Tamerlan Tsarnaev should be buried at sea, similar to what was done with the body of Osama bin Laden.
Other protestors simply did not want Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s remains in their town, like retired firefighter Ronald Wahlers.
“It’s going to give this neighborhood a bad name,” Ronald Wahlers, who has lived in Worcester for a year and a half, told the Boston Globe.
“This guy doesn’t belong here.”
Peter Stefan disagrees: “I can’t control the circumstances of somebody’s death, or what they’ve done, or how they’ve died.
“In this country, we bury the dead.”
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Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of Boston bombers Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, appeared in photos of her as a younger woman wearing a low-cut blouse and having her hair teased like a 1980s rock star.
After she arrived in the U.S. from Russia in 2002, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva went to beauty school and did facials at a suburban day spa.
But in recent years, people noticed a change. The Boston bombers’ mother began wearing a hijab and cited conspiracy theories about 9/11 being a plot against Muslims.
Now known as the angry and grieving mother of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
In another, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was recorded talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, U.S. officials said.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, 45, insists there is no mystery. She’s no terrorist, just someone who found a deeper spirituality. She insists her sons – Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a gunfight with police, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was wounded and captured – are innocent.
“It’s all lies and hypocrisy,” she told The Associated Press in Dagestan.
“I’m sick and tired of all this nonsense that they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular person, and I’ve never been mixed up in any criminal intentions, especially any linked to terrorism.”
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva arrived in the U.S. in 2002, settling in a working-class section of Cambridge, Massachusetts. With four children, Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva qualified for food stamps and were on and off public assistance benefits for years. The large family squeezed itself into a third-floor apartment.
She took classes at the Catherine Hinds Institute of Esthetics, before becoming a state-licensed aesthetician. Anzor Tsarnaev, who had studied law, fixed cars.
By some accounts, the family was tolerant.
Bethany Smith, a New Yorker who befriended Zubeidat Tsarnaeva’s two daughters, said in an interview with Newsday that when she stayed with the family for a month in 2008 while she looked at colleges, she was welcomed even though she was Christian and had tattoos.
“I had nothing but love over there. They accepted me for who I was,” Bethany Smith told the newspaper.
“Their mother, Zubeidat, she considered me to be a part of the family. She called me her third daughter.”
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva is drawing increased attention after federal officials say Russian authorities intercepted her phone calls, including one in which she vaguely discussed jihad with her elder son, Tamerlan Tsarnaev
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said she and her son Tamerlan began to turn more deeply into their Muslim faith about five years ago after being influenced by a family friend, named “Misha”.
The man, whose full name she didn’t reveal but later was identified as Mikhail Allakhverdov, impressed her with a religious devotion that was far greater than her own, even though he was an ethnic Armenian who converted to Islam.
“I wasn’t praying until he prayed in our house, so I just got really ashamed that I am not praying, being a Muslim, being born Muslim. I am not praying. Misha, who converted, was praying,” Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said.
By then, she had left her job at the day spa and was giving facials in her apartment. One client, Alyssa Kilzer, noticed the change when Zubeidat Tsarnaeva put on a head scarf before leaving the apartment.
“She had never worn a hijab while working at the spa previously, or inside the house, and I was really surprised,” Alyssa Kilzer wrote in a post on her blog.
“She started to refuse to see boys that had gone through puberty, as she had consulted a religious figure and he had told her it was sacrilegious. She was often fasting.”
Alyssa Kilzer wrote that Zubeidat Tsarnaeva was a loving and supportive mother, and she felt sympathy for her plight after the April 15 bombings.
But the woman stopped visiting the family’s home for spa treatments in late 2011 or early 2012 when, during one session, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva “started quoting a conspiracy theory, telling me that she thought 9/11 was purposefully created by the American government to make America hate Muslims”.
“It’s real,” Zubeidat Tsarnaeva said, according to Alyssa Kilzer.
“My son knows all about it. You can read on the Internet.”
In the spring of 2010, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva’s eldest son, Tamerlan, got married in a ceremony at a Boston mosque that no one in the family had previously attended. Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his wife, Katherine Russell, a Rhode Island native and convert from Christianity, now have a three-year-old daughter, Zahara.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva married into a Chechen family but was an outsider. She is an Avar, from one of the dozens of ethnic groups in Dagestan. Her native village is now a hotbed of an ultraconservative strain of Islam known as Salafism or Wahabbism.
It is unclear whether religious differences fueled tension in their family. Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva divorced in 2011.
About the same time, there was a brief FBI investigation into Tamerlan Tsarnaev, prompted by a tip from Russia’s security service.
The vague warning from the Russians was that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, an amateur boxer in the U.S., was a follower of radical Islam who had changed drastically since 2010.
That led the FBI to interview Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011 at the family’s home in Cambridge. Officials ultimately placed his name, and his mother’s name, on various watch lists, but the inquiry was closed in late spring of 2011.
After the bombings, Russian authorities told U.S. investigators they had secretly recorded a phone conversation in which Zubeidat Tsarnaeva had vaguely discussed jihad with Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The Russians also recorded Zubeidat Tsarnaeva talking to someone in southern Russia who is under FBI investigation in an unrelated case, according to U.S. officials who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the investigation with reporters.
Anzor Tsarnaev’s brother, Ruslan Tsarni, told the AP from his home in Maryland that he believed his former sister-in-law had a “big-time influence” on her older son’s growing embrace of his Muslim faith and decision to quit boxing and school.
While Tamerlan Tsarnaev was living in Russia for six months in 2012, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who had remained in the U.S., was arrested at a shopping mall in the suburb of Natick, Massachusetts, and accused of trying to shoplift $1,624 worth of women’s clothing from a department store.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva failed to appear in court to answer the charges that fall, and instead left the country.
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Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, the widow of Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has stopped co-operating with authorities as it emerged female DNA found on one of the detonated bombs does not belong to her.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was later killed in a gunfight with authorities, called his wife in the hours after the FBI released surveillance images of him and his younger brother, Dzhokhar.
But only Katherine Russell, 24, knows what was said in the conversation, as she has stopped cooperating with authorities over recent days, the New York Times reported.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, the widow of Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has stopped co-operating with authorities as it emerged female DNA found on one of the detonated bombs does not belong to her
Authorities are skeptical of Katherine Russell’s insistence that she played no role in the Boston attack or in helping the Tsarnaev brothers escape the authorities following the release of the photographs, the Times reported.
A source told CNN that the bombs were built in the apartment that Tamerlan Tsarnaev shared with Katherine Russell and their 3-year-old daughter, Zahara. Residue samples were found on the kitchen table, the kitchen sink, and the bathtub, the source said.
Katherine Russell’s silence comes as sources told the newspaper that the fingerprints and female DNA found on at least one of the bombs did not belong to her. Authorities had taken a sample from her this week.
Spokesman Jason Pack confirmed that agents investigating the Boston bombings visited the North Kingstown home of Katherine Russell’s parents, where Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow has been staying since the Boston Marathon attacks.
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The FBI is now focusing on Katherine Russell Tsarnaev after federal officials investigating the Boston bombings have discovered radical Islamist materials on a computer belonging to the widow of Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, 24, has repeatedly claimed through her attorney that she knew nothing about the deadly April 15 bombings allegedly set off by her late husband, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar.
The FBI is now focusing on Katherine Russell Tsarnaev after agents have discovered radical Islamist materials on her computer
However, the discovery of al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine on Katherine Russell’s computer, along with the presence of explosive residue throughout their home, have raised new questions about her possible involvement in the act of terror.
According to a government document obtained by NBC News, an analysis of the bombs used at the Boston Marathon and pipe bombs that the Tsarnaevs had allegedly thrown at police may have been built following instructions that appeared in an Inspire article titled: Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom.
Officials have yet to determine whether the Islamist files found in Katherine Russell’s possession belonged to the 24-year-old mother, her late 26-year-old husband or a third party, a source told The Washington Post.
Tamerlan Tsranaev was shot dead in a gun battle with police four days after the marathon bombings when he and his brother allegedly carjacked a vehicle in a Boston suburb.
His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, had fled, setting off a massive manhunt that ended when he was discovered gravely wounded hiding in a boat.
Katherine Russell’s attorney, Amato DeLuca, had previously said his client was kept in the dark about the deadly plot, and she was shocked to learn that her husband and brother-in-law were allegedly responsible for the attacks.
Meanwhile, CNN reported that investigators inspecting Katherine Russell and Tamerlan Tsranaev’s home in Cambridge, Massachusetts, found traces of explosive residue in the kitchen sink, the bathtub and on a table.
Following his arrest, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told police that he and his older brother built the pressure cooker bombs in the basement of the Cambridge residence.
However, it was established earlier this week that female DNA found one a piece of an explosive device used in the attacks did not match Katherine Russell’s, but rather belonged to a department store clerk where the Tsarnaev brothers had purchased the pressure cookers.
In another development in the case, federal and state law enforcement officials accompanied by bomb-sniffing dogs scoured a wooded area near Dartmouth, Massachusetts, where Dzhokhar Tsarnaev attended college, in search of new evidence possibly related to the attacks.
According to witness accounts, the brothers may have tested explosives in the woods two weeks before the bombings.
It was revealed earlier this week that Tamerlan Tsarnaev called his wife in the hours after the FBI released surveillance images of him and his younger brother.
But only Katherine Russell knows what was said in the conversation, as she has stopped cooperating with authorities over recent days, the New York Times reported.
Authorities are skeptical of her insistence that she played no role in the attack or in helping the Tsarnaev brothers escape the authorities following the release of the photographs, the Times reported.
A source told CNN that the bombs were built in the apartment that Tamerlan Tsarnaev shared with Katherine Russell and their 3-year-old daughter, Zahara. Residue samples were found on the kitchen table, the kitchen sink, and the bathtub, the source said.
Katherine Russell’s silence comes as sources told the newspaper that the fingerprints and female DNA found on at least one of the bombs did not belong to her. Authorities had taken a sample from her this week.
Spokesman Jason Pack confirmed that agents investigating the Boston bombings visited the North Kingstown home of Katherine Russell’s parents, where Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow has been staying since the attacks.
An official had revealed that female DNA was found on at least one of the bombs, although investigators haven’t determined whose it is or whether it means a woman helped the two suspects.
Her lawyer says Katherine Russell denies any involvement in the bombings, but authorities are still working to establish what exactly she knew – if anything – before or after the April 15 attacks.
On Wednesday, attorney Amato DeLuca insisted Katherine Russell “will continue to meet with law enforcement, as she has done for many hours over the past week, and provide as much assistance to the investigation as she can”.
Katherine Russell met Tamerlan Tamerlan while she was a student at Suffolk University, according to her lawyer. She converted to Islam and they married in 2010 before having a daughter.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died on April 19 following a shoot out with police in Watertown. Investigators say his younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, hit him with a car as he fled the scene.
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Tamerlan Tsarnaev died from gunshot wounds and blunt trauma to his head and torso, a funeral home in Worcester revealed today.
Worcester funeral home owner Peter Stefan who was holding the body Tamerlan Tsarnaev read the details from his death certificate on Friday.
The certificate cites 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s “gunshot wounds of torso and extremities” and lists the time of his death as 1:35 a.m. on April 19, four days after Boston Marathon deadly bombings, Peter Stefan said.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him and his younger brother, Dzhokhar.
Police have said he ran out of ammunition before his younger brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev died from gunshot wounds and blunt trauma to his head and torso
Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s family on Friday was making arrangements for his funeral as investigators searched the woods near a college attended by 19-year-old Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was captured less than a day after his brother’s death.
The funeral parlor in Worcester is familiar with Muslim services and said it will handle arrangements for Tamerlan Tsarnaev, whose body was released by the state medical examiner on Thursday night.
The body was taken initially to a North Attleborough funeral home, where it was greeted by about 20 protesters.
On Friday a woman answering a phone at the funeral parlor said it has since been removed and taken elsewhere, the Los Angeles Times reports.
“He was briefly here and he is no longer here. That is all the information we can provide,” said the woman who only identified herself by her first name of Nina.
Peter Stefan, owner of Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors in Worcester, an hour’s drive west of Boston, said everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of his or her death and he is prepared for protests.
“My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don’t want to do it. They don’t want to be involved with this,” said Peter Stefan, who said dozens of protesters gathered outside his funeral home, upset with his decision to handle the funeral.
“I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those, too.”
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