Breaking: Explosion Reported at Boston Marathon's Finish Line

[Peter Lemkin]

Is This the Man Who "Radicalized" Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

By Joe Giambrone

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Photo: Brian Glyn Williams (right) Source: brianglynwilliams.com

"I hope I didn't contribute to it. That kid and his brother identified with the Chechen struggle." Brian Glyn Williams, South Coast Today , April 19[SUP]th[/SUP]2013

Who is Brian Glyn Williams, and why was he telling his local newspaper such things relating to the alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev? This question may be highly relevant to our understanding of the bombing and of the longstanding Chechen insurgency itself. It was Williams who contacted South Coast Today reporter Steve Urbon first, and not vice-versa. This important article indicates a series of contacts between professor Williams and the boy who would later be accused of terrorism and mass murder at the 2013 Boston Marathon.

Brian Glyn Williams bills himself as an associate professor of Islamic History at University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. That's where his byline tends to stop, abridged as it is. Recently however, Williams has come clean about his CIA past as a field operative in Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and around Central Asia in the early 2000′s. He studied, of all things, the motivations of "suicide bombers," establishing himself as an expert on the subject. Professor Williams also has a longtime association with the Jamestown Foundation, created by the head of the CIA in 1984 and steered by Zbigniew Brzezinski. Williams' role as an "analyst" forJamestown Foundation is usually also omitted from his byline, when his editorials appear in such mainstream journals as the Huffington Post, The Atlantic Monthly and elsewhere. Such failure to disclose his personal connections to US intelligence and to an intelligence-connected front organization mirrors his non-disclosure concerning his personal relationship with the alleged Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in those very same publications.
A website called Major History profiled Professor Williams in March of 2013. There they wrote, "[Brian Glyn Williams'] work has taken him to " Afghanistan to work for the Central Intelligence Agency. Williams was tasked with helping law enforcement and intelligence agencies understand the motivations and behaviors of suicide bombers"" As Williams' formal education is in history, rather than psychological profiling, this may seem a bit out of the ordinary. "[Williams'] findings about suicide bombings in Afghanistan were informed by his understanding of tribal identities as much as fervor for the Jihadist movement. He came to these conclusions after being sent to Afghanistan by the CIA to perform firsthand research on these types of attacks. This type of fieldwork is unusual for most academics but especially for historians..."

Which version of Brian Glyn Williams are we reading?

In 2008 Williams wrote a Field Report on Suicide Bombers of Afghanistan, for the Middle East Policy journal. No indication was given to readers that his specific trip to Afghanistan was as a CIA operative . That disclosure does not seem to have been made until March of 2013. In the piece, Dr. Williams, a lowly associate professor of Islamic History, said, ""it was my research on Afghanistan's suicide bombers that had drawn me from the safety of my world to the Pashtun tribal regions"" That may be so, but it is certainly not the entire story.
Williams' elaborate 2011 defense of the CIA's drone assassination campaign is an exercise in bolstering the CIA's policies without fully disclosing his own linkages or self-interests. Writing in the West Point CTC Sentinel , "Brian Glyn Williams is Associate Professor of Islamic History at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth. He formerly taught at the University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies." That's all that Williams discloses in Accuracy of the U.S. Drone Campaign: The Views of a Pakistani General.
FrontPage Magazine managed to locate Brian Glyn Williams after the Boston Marathon bombings and noted, "Professor Brian Glyn Williams teaches the only course in the country about the Chechen wars and said Dzokhar emailed him questions in the spring of 2011." No mention of CIA or Jamestown, but was this at all unexpected given Williams' persistent pattern of non-disclosures?
As Williams is billed as the sole academic in the US worth talking to about the Chechen wars, he should quite know all about the Islamic Jihad that has raged there since the 90′s and which FrontPage describes clearly just further down in the article. " When Osama Bin Laden set up a training camp in Chechnya in 1995, he wanted to "establish a worldwide Islamic state""

Who are the Chechen rebel "commanders?"

Canadian Broadcasting (CBC) reported in 2010 , "Last year, a charismatic rebel commander calling himself Said Buryatsky bragged on the rebel website Kavkaz Center he was training new suicide bombers". Buryatsky" studied for several years in Saudi Arabia" A new leader, Dokka Umarov, emerged declaring the new goal was to separate all six Muslim majority provinces in the Russian Caucasus from the Russian Federation, and create a new Islamic state ruled by Sharia law. Admired for his Saudi religious education Buryatsky quickly became Umarov's chief ideologist. He also became a valued military strategist."
Doku Umarov is the current leader of the Chechen insurgency, and he is known as "Russia's Bin Laden." His website Kavkaz Center is hosted in Finland. On June 29[SUP]th[/SUP] of 2010 the US State Department designated Doku Umarov a "global terrorist." In June of 2012 Finnish prosecutors were reported to have linked the US State Department itself to funding for Doku Umarov's website operations the Kavkaz Center.
In April of 2013, Brian Glyn Williams suggested to his Huffington Post readers to visit the Kavkaz Center website to see that these Chechens allegedly don't target Americans. Williams claimed, "While the small number of Chechen rebels were later radicalized in the 2000s and came to see their war for national independence as a defensive jihad, they had no reason to attack distant America."
Williams, of course, knows that an Al Qaeda training camp was established in Chechnya in 1995. He suggests, "For a view into their world see the Chechen rebels' website Kavkaz Center ." The owner of that website in Finland, Mikael Storsjo received a "four-month suspended sentence" in 2012 for "assisting Chechen terrorists to enter Finland illegally."
Brian Glyn Williams knows full well that Doku Umarov is a terrorist and that the bombings gleefully boasted about on his Jihad website Kavkaz Center are in fact acts of terrorism. As Umarov is officially designated a "global terrorist" by the US government itself, should Mr. Williams be supporting him, his group and his website rhetorically?

More to the point: Did Williams recommend this website and its activities to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

The distinction that Williams stresses repeatedly is that "they had no reason to attack distant America." The clear implication here is that terrorist attacks against Russians are of no concern and should not be of concern to readers.
Doku Umarov's Al Qaeda-connected group is famous for the massacre of almost 400 civilians at a school in Beslan, Russia in 2004. FrontPage continues its summation of more recent attacks: ""a November 2009 train bombing that killed 28; suicide bombings in a Moscow subway by female operatives in March 2010 that killed 40; and an airport bombing in January 2011 that killed 36."
Upon reading Brian Glyn Williams suggestion in the Huffington Post to visit Kavkaz, I clicked the link and found this recent post (5/20/13): "Two blasts in Dagestan killed and injured more than 50 puppets [21:56] Russian invaders reported that 2 blasts went off within an interval of 15 minutes in Shamilkala, the capital the Caucasus Emirate's Province of Dagestan."

Taken From Kavkaz Center Homepage, Source: Kavkaz Center Homepage (5/20/13)

One must infer that the above is acceptable in Mr. Brian Glyn Williams' view, as it does not target Americans. While Williams vehemently denies any connection between the Chechens and Saudi Wahabbis, the Chechen commanders themselves may see it quite differently.
In the South Coast Today report by Steve Urbon, Brian Glyn Williams described his communications with the younger Tsarnaev brother. "[Dzhokhar] wanted to learn more about Chechnya,who the fighters were, who the commanders were. I sort of gave him background." What Mr. Williams considers "background" is the key question here, and his specific emails and any other correspondence with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev should be investigated fully.
The "commanders" were, and are, Doku Umarov, Said Buryatsky and a distinguished gentleman named Shamil Basayev. Basayev arranged for 850 hostages to be taken at a theater in Moscow in 2002, demanding Russia give up the province of Chechnya and pull out. During the siege 130 civilians died as well as all 40 of Basayev's armed terrorists.

When Williams defends the Chechen "cause" and "struggle", just which cause is he defending exactly?

Williams next tells his Huffington Post readers, "It seems that the older Tamerlan then converted his brother Dzhokar to the fanatical cause". Ah, but here is where we must insist on a full disclosure from Mr. Brian Glyn Williams himself.
To a Fox News audience, "Williams said that after [Dzhokhar] contacted him, he emailed back a syllabus. He said he didn't even remember the interaction until he talked to a friend."
In the South Coast Today , however, "Williams recalled [Dzhokhar] clearly, though the two never met and communicated by email, Williams sending him links to academic papers he's published and books he recommended." Williams then made his case for propagandizing the boy. "As Williams put it, an ancient civilization was being wiped away… there are stories of mass killings, death camps, mass graves, torture, destruction."
In the Fox report Williams reiterated his recurring thesis. "He said the official [Chechen rebel] leadership is more secular and moderate, but there is an extremist element that sees the Russians as "infidels. " That is the story of the Chechen conflict that Williams peddles to whomever will listen, including the eager students at the University of Massachusetts and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. But what is secular or moderate about Mr. Umarov and his Saudi-trained chief ideologist and suicide bomber trainer, Mr. Buryatsky? It is they who are responsible for the Kavkaz Center, which Brian Glyn Williams linked to in his Huffington Post piece.
In another article that Williams wrote a week after the Boston bombing, Who Are The Chechens? , he told us, "Having taught what is perhaps the only class in America, if not the world, on this obscure land for nine years"" and nothing about his CIA-contracted field work. If ever a conflict of interest should be disclosed, then this is surely that time. The man taught about a foreign insurgency in Russia at a public University for nearly a decade despite being a field operative on the payroll of the Central Intelligence Agency. He apparently never disclosed this fact at the time, nor even in this post-bombing article. It remains a mystery why he chose to disclose his CIA past at all in Major History in March of this year. One motivation may have come from the publisher of his new book "Predators: The CIA's Drone War on al Qaeda,"where it is also mentioned .Williams' CIA bona fides may be seen as a useful marketing blurb to sell the book to readers. In this new era of Zero Dark Thirty the CIA is overwhelmingly sold to the American public as being the good guys, their Church Commission dirty laundry revelations long since forgotten.
Never disclosed in Williams' one-sided portrayal of his subject matter is the United States' covert role in sponsoring, funding and encouraging Jihad against first the Soviets in Afghanistan (1979), and then in former republics of the Soviet Union including Bosnia, Kosovo, Chechnya and Dagestan. For all the inspiring talk of desperate "David versus Goliath" Chechen Jihadist warriors, the proxy nature of these insurgencies does not merit any mention by the professor.
Screenshot of Jamestown Foundation Website
This NGO was founded in 1984 by William Casey, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Reagan, as well as Zbigniew Brzezinski and exiled Soviet-bloc intelligence defectors. It was a Cold War information collection and propaganda source used to strategically weaken the Soviet Union and to advance US interests in Asia, a mission that continues today undeterred.
SourceWatch states, "Jamestown's work has contributed directly to the spread of democracy and personal freedom in the former Communist Bloc countries." In other words it is an active political player in the region. It also has an extensive record of influencing the internal politics of "Communist Bloc countries" so that they become "former."
Zbigniew Brzezinski is famous for designing and launching the 1979 Jihad in Afghanistan that drew the Soviets into their own "Vietnam," thereby weakening Soviet Russia and draining its resources on a US-engineered and supported proxy war. The arms and fighters flowed through Pakistan and Saudi Arabia primarily, in partnership with the CIA. Radical Islamic fighters were recruited from all over the Arab world to go fight a Jihad in Afghanistan throughout the 1980s.
Brzezinski bragged about this success against the Soviets and simultaneously dismissed concerns over Islamic fundamentalism. "What is most important to the history of the world? The Taliban or the collapse of the Soviet empire? Some stirred-up Moslems or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the cold war?" Brzezinski's 1997 book The Grand Chessboardpredicted major wars in Central Asia, the oil, gas and mineral rich Caspian region and the Caucasus as necessary for insuring America's "primacy" in the world. His goal is based upon world domination by America and its allies, and his entire career has been in service to this goal. Brzezinski holds the highest position at the Jamestown Foundation.
Currently, says SourceWatch: "Global Terrorism Analysis is a subset of The Jamestown Foundation which publishes three journals, Terrorism Monitor" Spotlight on Terror" and "Terrorism Focus." It also publishes, "Chechnya Weekly." Jamestown boasts a lengthy roster of paid analysts, and Brian Glyn Williams is a longtime contributor.
Former National Security Agency officer Wayne Madsen says , "The Jamestown Foundation is part of a neo-conservative network that re-branded itself after the Cold War from being anti-Soviet and anti-Communist to one that is anti-Russian and "pro-democracy." Madsen notes several further connections. "The network not only consists of Jamestown and the Caucasus Fund but also other groups funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)and the [George Soros] Open Society Institute (OSI).
Jamestown and Caucasus Fund were flagged by Georgian state security as holding training seminars in 2012 attended by none other thanTamerlan Tsarnaev during his trip to Russia in the first half of the year. This second connection between Jamestown Foundation and the Tsarnaev brothers bolsters the idea that the two brothers were being recruited by US intelligence and were not "lone wolves" as is presented uncritically across the US corporate media spectrum. A further connection to both the CIA and to USAID leads directly to the boys' uncle Ruslan Tsarni . That's three. And now we have reasonable suspicion to investigate further persons associated with these shady and highly-motivated organizations.
USAID, which uncle Ruslan Tsarni worked with or more likely for since the 1990s, was recently expelled from Russia for interfering in the internal politics of that country. This interference is a consistent pattern, one that has flipped multiple countries from the Russian alliance to the NATO/US alliance, including Georgia, Uzbekistan and Ukraine.

Back to Chechnya

Brian Glyn Williams' so-called expertise on the Chechen conflict stems directly from official US policy since the Cold War, and that is a policy to break up the Soviet Union and Russia in order to weaken it, and to therefore strengthen the US / NATO alliance and expand it into Asia. The dissolution of Chechnya and Dagestan is seen as a continuation of the break-up of the rest of the Soviet Union, despite Chechnya being a part of Russia for 150 years. The Chechen insurgency of the 1990s sprung up in similar fashion to other radical Islamic insurgencies promoted by the US and its allies throughout Central Asia. Numerous foreign fighters flooded in to fight the Russians in similar fashion to the Afghanistan Jihad, also known as Operation Cyclone.
Brian Glyn Williams' 2004 paper on the subject provides clues to his motivations, and they are far from neutral or academic. InFrom "Secessionist Rebels" to "Al-Qaeda Shock Brigades": Assessing Russia's Efforts to Extend the Post-September 11th War on Terror to Chechnya,Williams wrote, ""Condoleeza Rice, tellingly proclaimed "not every Chechen is a terrorist and the Chechens' legitimate aspirations for a political solution should be pursued by the Russian government.'"
In other words, the US demanded that secession and the break-up of Russia be permitted by the Russian government. When the United States itself faced secession and break-up in 1860, this was not exactly welcomed by those in power.
The strategy of defining terrorists working in the interests of US policymakers as "freedom fighters" and dismissing their atrocities by characterizing them as the work of a small "minority," seems to originate with Zbigniew Brzezinski. Williams quotes Brzezinski in the piece: "What should be done? To start with the US should not fall for Russia's entreaty that we are allies against Osama bin Laden'… Terrorism is neither the geopolitical nor moral challenge here [in Chechnya]."
This is an ideological foundation for ignoring terrorism whenever and wherever it suits US interests. Such has been the policy for a long, long time and in the Muslim world easily shown back to 1979. Terrorism in Chechnya is described by Professor Williams as not being from the majority, but from a minority. Essentially a straw man argument, no one would claim that terrorists are a majority in the first place. This exact argument is used by US apologists concerning Syria today in regards to the Al Qaeda connected Al Nusra Brigades operating there.
In The Atlantic on April 26[SUP]th[/SUP] of this year, Brian Glyn Williams told American readers, "There is aminority among the rebels that subscribe to the global view of jihad. But overall Chechens are very pro-American and pro-Western." The first sentence claims a minority "among the rebels," but the second statement seeks to bolster the first claim by mentioning "overall" about Chechen civilians in general. The first claim, however is false, and the actual fighters committing bombings, hostage takings and shootings in Russia on behalf of Chechen independence are connected with Doku Umarov and his Jihad to establish Sharia Law. Therefore Williams is wrong on the facts today and misleading his readers.
One of the most useful sources of information to debunk Brian Glyn Williams is, surprisingly enough, Brian Glyn Williams' own papers, like the 2004 piece cited above. "" President Bush went on to declare that "Arab terrorists' linked to Osama bin Laden's Al Qaeda organization were operating on Chechen territory and ought to be "brought to justice.'28 U. S. Secretary of State, Colin Powell, went a step further and proclaimed "Russia is fighting terrorists in Chechnya, there is no question about that, and we understand that." His entire paper reads like a Cold War propaganda piece designed to dispute the assessment of even Bush and Powell and to put forth the myth that the Chechens are not in any way, shape or form linked to Al Qaeda, which is a demonstrably false premise. Williams mentions that the Taliban recognized the breakaway Chechen Emirate as a legitimate government in 2000, but he dismisses this fact as a "purely symbolic gesture."
Remember, this is the man who is currently authoring a book to destroy the idea that Chechen terrorism is in any way linked to Al Qaeda. His April 19[SUP]th[/SUP] interview with Steve Urbon ended with, "[Chechens] are not Al Qaeda. Repeat: They are not Al Qaeda." Chechen fighters, however, are overwhelmingly radical Islamists, and this is where Williams is debunked as a tale spinner.
In the Huffington Post , April 25[SUP]th[/SUP], Williams wrote, "I myself personally traveled to Afghanistan in 2003 and interviewed numerous Taliban prisoners of war held by Northern Alliance Uzbek General Dostum." Williams does not disclose his CIA assignment on that trip nor who this General Dostum actually is . Patrick Cockburn described Dostum as follows. "In northern Afghanistan General Rashid Dostum, a warlord of notorious brutality but an ally of the CIA, had hundreds, if not thousands, of prisoners buried alive or packed into containers to suffocate."
Here with Dostum and friends, the ever-objective Professor Williams found a consistent story: no Chechens. "None of them had ever seen or heard of Chechens; it was like looking for the Chechen Big Foot ." That's a nice story, but is it the truth?
In his 2004 report, Williams tells how this very question was essentially the purpose of his mission, his CIA assignment. "My goal was to see if any of these prisoners of war had seen or fought alongside one of the "thousands' of "Chechen die-hard Al Qaeda fanatics' reported to have fought against U. S. forces in the Afghan theater." His mission was to make the distinction between Chechens and Al Qaeda, apparently at the behest of the CIA. He has been dutifully repeating this claim ever since. His new book to be released next year, entitled "Inferno in the Caucus: The Chechen insurgency and the Mirage of Al Qaeda," will attempt to make this same argument again.
Mark Ames at NSFWCorp was first to challenge Wiliams' "Chechen Big Foot" claim. Ames compiled a list of articles to dispute Williams.
"[Defense Secretary] Rumsfeld told reporters , "There's Chinese in there, there's Chechens in there"" Agence France-Presse, on March 22, 2002: ""Chechen fighters in Afghanistan who have thrown their lot in with Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network." Even US Generals were quoted specifically referring to Chechens in Afghanistan and allied with Bin Laden. "We know the history of the Chechens. They are good fighters and they are very brutal," [US Major General Frank] Hagenbeck said. The general said he has heard of reports out of the Pentagon that a unit of 100-150 Chechens had moved into southern Afghanistan." And here is more evidence that Brian Glyn Williams claims does not exist: "General Tommy Franks, the commander of US forces, said in Moscow Thursday that Chechen fighters were among the al-Qaeda fighters taken prisoner by US troops but gave no figures." The New York Times reported, "Between 100 and 200 Qaeda and "non-Afghan" fighters, including Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks, have been killed in heavy fighting so far, General Franks said…" During the battle of Tora Bora theNY Times reported Chechens as the fiercest fighters, "By all accounts, the Arab and Chechen fighters have put up the stiffest resistance."
Williams also tied his own 2003 mission to Afghanistan with official US policy changes during that time period, "" the White House'sevolving foreign policy had, by 2003, come to have a more balanced view of the Chechen separatists and a three-dimensional view of their supposed links to international terrorism. The U. S. State Department" limited itself to designating several fringe Chechen terrorists groups led by rogue field commander Shamil Basayev as "Foreign Terrorist Organizations.'"
Williams' entire career aligns with this policy change. His field work was directly in service of bolstering this view and gathering evidence in support of maintaining good relations and support for Chechen "freedom fighters" who persist to this day in trying to break away from Russia. This is Brzezinski's Grand Chessboard in action.

Security Holes Are Part of the Game

Mark Ames at NSFW details how this very same policy of treating Chechen terrorists as "freedom fighters" directly impacted the September 11[SUP]th[/SUP] attacks, in particular the thwarted investigation of "20[SUP]th[/SUP] hijacker" Zacharias Moussaoui one month before the attacks.
""Minneapolis agent Harry Samit got the US Embassies in Paris and London to look into Moussaoui's background," said Ames. "The FBI's legal attaché in Paris got back to Minneapolis with some startling news establishing a link between Moussoui and the Saudi warlord in Chechnya, Khattab. The only problem was that by August 2001, US policy did not recognize the Chechen rebels as terrorists with links to Al Qaeda or Bin Laden."
An FBI memo already established al Khattab as an Al Qaeda terrorist, but the investigation of Moussaoui's laptop was denied to the FBI Minneapolis officers and to Coleen Rowley, the legal advisor there. "True, there was an FBI memo on the FBI director Louis Freeh's desk explicitly warning that terrorists linked to Khattab and Bin Laden were planning a major attack, but the memo was dismissed, and the FBI man in Washington DC, who should have seen that memo but claims he didn't, rebuffed Minneapolis and shut down their requests for a warrant to look in Moussaoui's laptop."
Brian Glyn Williams mentions Khattab in other articles, acknowledging his Saudi roots, funding and role in setting up training camps in Chechnya in 1995. Williams also admits that the indigenous Chechen rebel leadership made a strategic alliance with Khattab and his Al Qaeda support network in 1999. Williams himself wrote, "Although the Russian Federation had initially limited its retaliatory bombing strikes to Khattab's camps in southeastern Chechnya, the Kremlin launched a total invasion of Chechnya in October 1999. This indiscriminate invasion drove Chechnya's moderate leadership (the only force in Chechnya that might have assisted in expelling the foreign jihadis) into a strategic alliance with Khattab and his IIB." Straight from the horse's mouth. Sounding a lot like those attempting to hold Williams to account, he himself told of the foreign Jihadist infusion, Islamists who travelled into Chechnya to engage in warfare and terrorism. Wrote Williams, "Young Egyptians, Yemenis, Saudis, Pakistanis, Turks, etc. continue to make their way at great risk to Chechnya to assist the Chechens in their uneven struggle. Many of those who have fought in Chechnya have been radicalized by their experience as front line jihadis." Thorough as the good professor is, he even places Al Qaeda's number 2 at the time, and now top Al Qaeda leader Zawahiri in Dagestan. "December 1996. Ayman al Zawaheri, leader of Egyptian Islamic Jihad and member of Al Qaeda's ruling troika, travels to Dagestan in search of a new base of operations"" These Chechen/Al Qaeda links, many of which are admitted to by Williams himself, are striking and irrefutable… but inconvenient for current policy makers. Excerpts are taken from, "The Chechen Arabs': An Introduction To The Real Al-Qaeda Terrorists From Chechnya," Jamestown Foundation, Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 2 Issue: 1 , May 5, 2005, by Brian Glyn Williams.

So what the hell was Brian Glyn Williams telling Dzhokhar Tsarnaev?

And for how long? How many communications? What was motivating these communications? What is the relationship between Jamestown Foundation and ongoing covert operations in the Caucasus? What was the relationship of Jamestown Foundation to Tamerlan Tsarnaev on his trip to Dagestan in 2012? What is the relationship between the brothers and their uncle Ruslan Tsarnai and to his former father in law, CIA mastermind Graham Fuller? How did individuals in US intelligence cancel threat warnings issued on Tamerlan Tsarnaev? Who hid Tamerlan Tsarnaev's threat warnings from local Boston police and from members of the Boston Joint Terrorism Task Force?
Brian Glyn Williams ended his 2005 article with this statement: "As for the Chechens themselves, the world awaits the arrest of a single Chechen by coalition forces for involvement in Al Qaeda terrorism anywhere in the globe." What a bit of irony that the Chechen arrested for terrorism in Boston was communicating directly with Brian Glyn Williams and was mentored in his Chechen roots and heritage by Williams personally. We can only hope that the FBI thoroughly investigates what Williams told Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and which specific "commanders" and "fighters" he vouched for and personally recommended to the boy.
[B]Joe Giambrone [/B]publishes Politcal Film Blog (@polfilmblog), and he dares anyone to try this Hell of a Deal .
http://www.opednews.com/articles/1/Is-Th...6-764.html

[Peter Lemkin]

What did Todashev, shot by FBI, know about the Boston bombing?

By Ralph Lopez Apr 4, 2014 in World




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Now that it has emerged that the friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot three times in the back, and once in the top of the head, as he allegedly attacked an FBI agent and a Massachusetts state trooper, rampant speculation may begin.

The story put forth by the FBI on how Ibragim Todashev wound up dead in Florida is so wildly improbable as to be laughable.
On one hand, the direct testimony from the FBI agent who did the shooting, taken from the Florida State's Attorney Report, is as follows:
"In order to stop this threat, I shot Todashev three to four times. Todashev fell backwards, but did not go to the ground. He then re-established his footing and suddenly lunged toward us. I shot him three or four more times in order to stop his continuing deadly threat. This time Todashev fell to the ground face first and I believed the threat had been eliminated."
Read more...
Florida report: Todashev shot 3 times in the back by FBI agent
FBI agent cleared after killing man connected to Boston bombers
No charges for FBI agent in Boston-probe shooting




The state's attorney found that a total of seven shots had been fired: three to the back, two to the left arm, one to the left side of the chest, and one to the top of the head. Two of the back shots are square in the back, near the spine, at chest level, with the third at waist level to the right-hand side. (Photographs of Todashev Wounds, Released by Family)
How Todashev winds up with three entry wounds to the back is a question which cannot be answered by the agent's own scenario. Moreover, the shot to the top of the head means either it was the last shot fired, as it would have immediately dropped Todashev, likely stone cold dead, or other shots would have been fired at Todashev's lifeless body.
A man cannot keep coming at you with the kind of wound Todashev sustained to the head. It was a game-ender, made by a .40 round from the agent's Glock, which is a serious and devastating round. According to the report, the bullet "entered the top of the head, passed through the brain and the base of the skull."
Dave Lindorff, writing for Counterpunch, does an admirable job of showing other glaring inconsistencies in the testimonies of the two law enforcement officers who were present: the Massachusetts state trooper, and the FBI shooter himself. Lindorff circles back to the one irreconcilable question which the Florida report raises: How does Todashev come to be shot three times in the back?
Lindorff writes:

"Meanwhile...[the agent]...claims Todashev...was shot as he ran at the agent and staggered backwards, clearly indicating that he had been hit from the front. Again we had three shots, so it had to be the chest and the left arm. Now he "rights himself" and charges forward again, taking four more shots. But these, remember, are all either into the back, near the centerline of the body, or into the top of the head. The head shot couldn't have been number one in the second volley, because that would have been the shot that dropped him. So what would have caused his body to turn around exposing his back?"
Call it the case of the vaunted "somersault attack": you throw yourself at your opponent, back first. The back is exposed long enough for not one, not two, but for three shots to be delivered. Then another shot manages to hit him on the top of the head.

PublicIntelligence.net

Autopsy photo released by Todashev father of back wounds.

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Furthermore, the Todashev family's private investigator, upon first viewing the scene, said immediately that the lack of blood splatters on the walls, except some at floor level, indicated that Todashev had been shot as he lay on the ground. Ed Busquet, a former captain and homicide detective in the North Palm Police Department, reportedly said "Look at this no blood spattered on the walls. He was shot while down on the floor."
If speculation now abounds, it is entirely the FBI's own doing, for attempting to sell the public a story that a fifth-grader could pick apart.

Todashev Family

Photo of spot near front door of apartment where Todashev fell.

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Todashev Family

Blood stains at the exit point from the room where Todashev was interrogated.

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Busquet's observation recalls a long-ago case, in the FBI's unbroken string of 150 exonerations out of 150 agent shootings over the last 18 years, when a mob hit man was shot in the back while laying handcuffed, face down, on the ground. The discharge of the agent's weapon was ruled "accidental," although the suspect, who survived, subsequently won a civil lawsuit over the incident.
Suffice it to say that, unless the FBI comes up with a far better story, it is now highly likely, if not near certain, that Todashev was "executed" as his father first claimed. The burning question now is: why?
If Todashev knew something, what could it have been, which would be consistent with what we know about his relationship to Tsarnaev, and which would drive the FBI to the certain public relations headache of silencing him? According to Todashev's friend Khusen Taramov, who accompanied Todashev to his last interview by the FBI, Todashev had a ticket to Chechnya which was purchased before the Boston bombing. But the FBI, in the person of an agent known only as "Chris," pressed him to cancel it and stay for one more interview.
What we know about Todashev's relationship with the Boston bombing suspect, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was that it lay somewhere between acquaintance and friendship. Todashev's wife, Reni Manukyan, maintains that the two were never closer than two Chechens who worked out at the same gym, shared an interest in mixed martial arts, were nominally Muslim, and lived in the same Inman Square neighborhood in Cambridge.
"They were never close friends," Manukyan once said, "They attended the same gym."
But Todashev's live-in girlfriend in Florida, who moved in after he and his wife were separated, suggests a closer relationship. Tatiana Gruzdeva said Tamerlan and Todashev occasionally "hung out" and went clubbing together, not many times, but at least once or twice. Tsarnaev called Todashev after his knee surgery in March of 2013 to ask how he was doing, according to Gruzdeva. She told Boston Magazine:
"He asked how he feels after surgery and Ibragim [Todashev] tells him, I'm better, what about you? How is your family?' So they would talk just a little bit and that's it,"
But after the Boston bombings and Tamerlan's death, Gruzdeva recalled that Todashev seemed upset. She told Boston Magazine:
"He didn't tell me it was his friend, he just was so sad. I said, What happen with you?' He said, Nothing.' Long time he don't want to tell me. And after, he tell me, My friend is dead.'"
The media made much of Tsarnaev being a loner and not having any "American friends," although other reports indicate that he was friendly and easy-going before 2009, and occasionally "partied." What might a relative loner share with a countryman who shares the same religion and experience of being a Muslim in America in the era of the War on Terror?
It may be useful to back up. For a time after the bombing, the biggest problem the FBI had was the revelation, leaked by two separate, anonymous law enforcement officials, that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had already been on the FBI's radar screen by the time he allegedly struck. The FBI had been forced to backpedal from denying it ever knew anything about Tsarnaev, to posting a press release at the FBI website, acknowledging that Russian intelligence had contacted the FBI multiple times in 2011 about Tamerlan, and that the FBI had investigated him and interviewed him as well.
Oh, that Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

http://news2.onlinenigeria.com/

Tamerlan clowning.

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http://www.unionguanajuato.mx

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With egg on its face and congressmen calling for inquiries, along comes Tsarnaev's mother, Zubeidat, and tells Russia Today that:
"My son was set up. He was followed by the FBI for five years. They watched him. They used to come and talk to me. They said they were afraid of him because he was a leader."
Tsarnaev's mother said: "I am 100 percent sure this is a setup."
This perilously changed the narrative. Did the FBI have contact with the brothers or didn't it? We were being told they were "lone wolves," acting on their own. How are they lone wolves if the FBI is talking to them all along?
The FBI already has a long history of entrapment. These are complex webs of intrigue in which "patsies," wannabes, or otherwise hapless participants in some form, perhaps unwittingly, get to play a starring role. They might be told they are helping in a "drill." Little-reported in the mainstream media, these cases are now confirmed and beyond dispute. Most people don't know that in his Victim Impact Statement, Flight 253 passenger Kurt Haskell testified that he saw Umar, the "Underwear Bomber," being ushered into a secure area by security agents, who "aided Umar in boarding without a passport." Haskell told the court that "The airline gate worker initially refused Umar boarding until the man in the tan suit intervened."
Did this explode onto the front pages of US newspapers? That at least one credible person, subsequently backed up by his wife who was present, and other passengers, suggested that a terrorist bomber acted as part of a government-assisted conspiracy? Instead, Americans were subjected to new levels of privacy invasions: new TSA policies which demanded that citizens submit even to the groping of their private parts. A psychological power play, and escalation in the War on Terror, was complete.
The FBI's history of entrapment includes the 1993 World Trade Center Bombing, according to NBC News and the New York Times. The subject has been explored in numerous articles, including ones published in the Rolling Stone, Mother Jones, and Bloomberg News. Former Fox News anchor Ben Swann, early on, asked if the Boston Marathon bombing were another case of entrapment, in which critical parts of a plot are either known about beforehand, or supplied by the FBI itself.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev's mother was easy to discredit. First of all, it was his mother, not exactly an unbiased source. Then, old charges against the mother for shoplifting were dredged up and given prime time on American news. Who can believe someone who shoplifted? Still, perhaps in case she was thinking of visiting newspapers with more details, the FBI threatened to arrest her if she tried to enter the US.
Now let us suppose, just suppose, that someone else knew of any continuing contact with the FBI that Tamerlan and his brother might have had, thus endangering the "lone wolf" narrative. This would be after the public had already been asked to believe, incredibly, that after numerous interviews with the FBI, after high-level alerts from Russian intelligence, and after being placed on terror watch lists by the Boston Counter-Terrorism Unit itself, when the surveillance photos came out of the two Boston suspects, the FBI had no idea who they were.
This led to the FBI press conference in which the public's help was enlisted to identify the brothers, which in turn sparked the famous manhunt in which an entire city was "locked down," and residents ordered by authorities to stay inside, an unprecedented step toward the routine invocation of virtual martial law.
The entire FBI narrative takes on a sinister new hue, if, as the Tsarnaev's mother said, it was a "set up" all along. Now who might Tamerlan confide something like that too, a little FBI harassment, maybe more, of a young Muslim male?
It is obviously pure speculation that Tamerlan might mention something like that to an acquaintance, and fellow Chechen Muslim, like Todashev. What is not speculation is that such corroboration of the mother's claims, from a source at a distance, a friend-yet-not-quite-a-friend, would throw the lone wolves narrative severely off-kilter. This was one of the most horrific terror attacks in American history. No one can forget the images of ordinary people, out celebrating one of our most wholesome traditions, getting their legs blown off.
Put another way, if Todashev knew that Tamerlan had further contacts with FBI than what the FBI was letting on, corroborating the mother, he would almost have to die.
Whatever he knew, it was so important that he could not be allowed to take it to Chechnya, where the media was not as compliant to the wishes and bullying of the US government. Where Todashev could shoot his mouth off to, say, Russia Today.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev did not have many real friends, as friendly as he might once have been. Those who understood what it was like to be a young Muslim foreigner in America would be even fewer. The "loose ends" may have not been many. But they may have been important.
The elimination of witnesses takes on an added significance when we remember the strenuous efforts to kill Tamerlan's surviving brother, Dzhokhar, as he lay in a boat in Watertown, unarmed, when a withering barrage of gunfire managed not to kill him. And again when it was revealed that he had what appeared to be a traumatic knife wound to the throat when he entered the hospital, and was declared in critical condition, even though leaked photos showed no such traumatic wound as he emerged from the boat.
Again, pure speculation. But given that the FBI cannot be telling the truth, the speculation is entirely warranted.
Fusilade at Boat Dzhokhar Was Hiding In

Dzhokhar Emerging From Boat, No Traumatic Neck/Throat Wound

Boston Police Department

Dzhokhar emerging from boat, no traumatic neck/throat wound.

Like this image

SWAT Team Chief Describing Knife Wound to Neck, Dzhokhar Now in Critical Condition

FURTHER READING:
Florida report: Todashev shot 3 times in the back by FBI agent
Boston Bomber Carjacking Unravels (WhoWhatWhy.com)


Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/news/world...z35Y1hYchA

[David Guyatt]

The entire bloody thing is a set-up from beginning to end.

I dare say that just one .40 fired a close range would put a gorilla down, let alone a human being.

[David Guyatt]

Amazing the guy didn't get shot to death in custody...

Boston bombing suspect's friend Azamat Tazhayakov found guilty of trying to destroy evidence



Tazhayakov agreed with another friend to get rid of a backpack and disabled backpack after receiving a text message from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

DENISE LAVOIE

BOSTON

Tuesday 22 July 2014

A college friend has been convicted of trying to protect Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev by agreeing with another friend to get rid of a backpack and disabled fireworks they took from his dorm room three days after the attack.

Azamat Tazhayakov, a baby-faced 20-year-old, put his hands over his face and shook his head as guilty verdicts were read on federal charges of obstruction of justice and conspiracy in the first trial stemming from the twin bombings, which killed three and injured more than 260 near the marathon's finish line in April 2013. His mother sobbed loudly and rocked in her seat.
The jury found that Tazhayakov conspired with friend Dias Kadyrbayev to take from Tsarnaev's room a backpack containing fireworks that had been emptied of their explosive powder. Prosecutors said the explosive powder could have been used to make bombs.
Prosecutors and defence lawyers both told the jury it was Kadyrbayev who actually threw the items away, but prosecutors said Tazhayakov agreed with the plan and was an active participant.
Juror Daniel Antonino, 49, said the panel heavily debated the charges but in the end believed Tazhayakov had impeded the investigation.
"They took materials from that room that they never should have touched, and that's what he is going to pay the price for," Antonino said.
Tazhayakov faces a maximum 20-year prison sentence for obstruction and a five-year maximum for conspiracy at sentencing, which was scheduled for 16 October. The verdicts came less than three years after he arrived in the US from his native Kazakhstan, hoping to get an engineering degree at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth.
Prosecutors said Tazhayakov quickly became friends with Kadyrbayev, who was also from Kazakhstan, and the two also became friendly with Tsarnaev who, like them, spoke Russian. Tsarnaev, who lived in Kyrgyzstan and Russia, had come to the US as a child with his family. He turns 21 on Tuesday.
The three men often hung out together, in Tsarnaev's dorm room or at the off-campus apartment Tazhayakov and Kadyrbayev shared. Friends testified that the three men enjoyed playing video games and smoking marijuana.
During the trial, prosecutors showed jurors video of Tazhayakov at the university gym with Tsarnaev the day after the bombings. Both appeared relaxed. Tazhayakov's lawyers said the footage showed their client had no idea Tsarnaev was involved in the bombings until days later, when the FBI released photos of him and his brother, Tamerlan, as suspects.
Tazhayakov's lawyers argued that it was Kadyrbayev who removed the items from Tsarnaev's dorm room and then threw them away. Kadyrbayev faces a separate trial in September. A third friend, Robel Phillipos, is charged with lying to investigators and is also scheduled for trial in September.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev escaped but was soon found, wounded and hiding in a boat dry-docked in a backyard in suburban Watertown. The backpack and fireworks were later recovered from a landfill.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled for trial in November. He faces the possibility of the death penalty if convicted.
Defence attorney Matthew Myers called the Tazhayakov verdict "somewhat surprising" and said it was difficult to try the case in Boston, where emotions run high over the bombings. He said he believes jurors felt a "certain pressure" to find his client guilty.
"We understand what this town has been through. ... It's hard to overcome that bias," Myers said.
Myers said lawyers will appeal the verdict, at least in part on a verdict form that asked jurors to decide whether Tazhayakov obstructed justice and conspired to obstruct justice on both a laptop computer that was taken from Tsarnaev's room and the backpack containing fireworks.
The jury found Tazhayakov not guilty of participating in the plan to take the laptop, but guilty on the plan to take the backpack and fireworks. They had to find him guilty of only one of them to convict him of the charge.
"We think it may have distracted the jury," Myers said of the verdict form.
FBI agents testified during the trial that Tazhayakov told them he and Kadyrbayev decided to take the backpack, fireworks and Tsarnaev's computer hours after Kadyrbayev received a text message from Tsarnaev that said he could go to his dorm room and "take what's there."
Myers told the jury his client was a naive college kid who was prosecuted because he was a "friend of the bomber."
AP

[Peter Lemkin]

BOSTON UPDATE: FBI War on Marathon Bombing Witnesses Continues
Posted By James Henry On October 2, 2014 @ 5:47 pm In Domestic,Fresh Takes,National Security | 21 Comments
[SUP][1][/SUP]The FBI's apparent message to Tsarnaev's defense team

The Boston Marathon bombing is much more important than has been acknowledged, principally because it is the major domestic national security event since 9-11 and has played a major role in expanding the power of the security state. For that reason, WhoWhatWhy is continuing to investigate troubling aspects of this story and the establishment media treatment of it. So even as it slips from the headlines, we will be exploring new elements of the story regularly as the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev approaches.
***

Since the Boston Marathon bombing a year and a half ago, the FBI appears to be intimidating, harassing, and silencing friends and acquaintances of the Tsarnaev brothers. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's lawyers have noticed it toothey're having trouble getting anyone to talk to them, recent court papers reveal.
In what WhoWhatWhy previously described as the FBI's "war on witnesses" [SUP][2][/SUP], the Bureau seems to be employing a scorched earth strategy of destroying anything that might be of use to the "enemy."
On August 29, Tsarnaev's lawyers filed a motion [SUP][3][/SUP] requesting a continuance for more time to prepare their defense, noting the fact that they were given only half the median preparation time that federal courts have allowed over the past decade for defendants on trial for their lives. (The judge did grant a two-month delay [SUP][4][/SUP] while refusing the defense request to move the trial out of Boston.)
The lawyers cited "outpaced requirements" in building a proper defense for their client: (1) the international nature of the investigationincluding language and geographic barriers, (2) the large amount of evidence that has to be scrutinized, and most tellingly, (3) the climate of intimidation and fear created by the FBI's investigative efforts since the bombing. They write:
Domestic defense mitigation investigation has been conducted amid a growing atmosphere of anxiety and agitation generated by highly-publicized arrests, indictments, prosecutions, deportations (and, in one instance, the FBI killing) of members of Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev's peer groups.
Most news reports brush over that last part [SUP][5][/SUP]. As if shooting to death an unarmed man involved in this caseas an FBI agent did to Tamerlan's friend Ibragim Todashevis not relevant to the difficulties the defense team has had in getting witnesses to talk to them. But even less extreme events are enough to silence potential witnesses, such as the mysterious closing of their bank accounts. [SUP][6][/SUP]
[SUP][7][/SUP]The father of Ibragim Todashev displays end result of FBI interview.

Prosecutors resisted this and an earlier attempt to have the trial delayed. The victims have a right to see justice doneswiftly, the thinking goes.
The victims and their families certainly deserve justice for this horrible atrocity. True justice should include a full accountingsomething a hurried, one-sided investigation is not likely to produce. And of course Boston and the American public deserve, and need, the truth, whatever it may be.
Yet a close read of the motion document reveals FBI activities that seem more of an effort to conceal than to illuminate.
The FBI's March to the Sea
Tsarnaev's defense team makes reference to the most troublingand most anxiety-producingaction by the FBI since the bombing: the shooting to death of Tamerlan's friend, Todashev. (See our earlier story on the head-scratching circumstances surrounding that shooting, including the questionable history [SUP][8][/SUP] of the agent who pulled the trigger.)
Some of the FBI's aggressive tactics described in the defense document look like outright intimidation. For instance, individuals "with lawful immigration status have been detained for hours and required to surrender their electronic devices upon re-entry to the United States."
And take a look at this excerpt:
"The investigation has been further hampered by aggressive FBI follow-up tracking and questioning of potential witnesses, as well as by the unrelenting attention of the news media."
It is one thing to be aggressively tracking and questioning individuals suspected of committing crimes, but to be doing this to presumably innocent witnesses reeks of intimidation. Witness intimidation is a tactic ordinarily associated with mafia or drug cartel defendants [SUP][9][/SUP].
Notably, this "tracking" must have been brought to the attention of defense lawyers by witnesses themselves, indicating overt surveillance: "We're watching you."
Then, farther down in the document:
"These difficult circumstances are compounded by a continuing pattern of aggressive FBI re-interviewing of potential witnesses on occasion within hours of an attempted contact by defense investigator [emphasis added]."
Within hours of an attempted contact by defense investigator? Is the defense team being watched too? (We reached out to Tsarnaev's defense team hoping they could expand on that, but have not yet had a response.)
[SUP][10][/SUP]It wouldn't be the first time the FBI was caught spying on defense lawyers in a high-profile terrorism case. Lawyers for accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed allege that the FBI [SUP][11][/SUP] has been surveilling them.
Whether legal counsel are being watched directly or simply getting caught up in the surveillance of Tsarnaev's acquaintances, the effect is the same: the feds know who is talking to whom, and when.
That's a Nice Immigration Status You Got There…
Witnesses who are not U.S. citizenswhich describes the majority of Tsarnaev's friends, family, and many in the local Muslim communityare particularly vulnerable to law enforcement manipulation. The threat of deportation is a clear and present danger to these individuals, "regardless of whether criminal charges are ever brought or proven against them," Tsarnaev's lawyers wrote.
[SUP][12][/SUP]Indeed, a handful of people loosely connected to the Tsarnaevs have already been deported, or had deportation proceedings initiated against them, despite having nothing to do with the Boston Marathon bombing. These include:
- Konstantin Morozov: friend of Tamerlan, arrested and jailed pending deportation reportedly after refusing to wear a wire [SUP][13][/SUP] for the FBI as the Bureau sought information on one of Tamerlan's Chechen friends.
- Tatiana Gruzdeva: girlfriend of Ibragim Todashev, deported after speaking [SUP][2][/SUP] with Boston Magazine about the circumstances surrounding her boyfriend's death.

• [SUP][14][/SUP]Tatiana-Gruzdeva
  
  - Ashurmamad Miraliev: friend of Ibragim Todashev, was reportedly denied a request for an attorney [SUP][2][/SUP] while interrogated by FBI for over six hours, and transferred to an immigration detention center where deportation proceedings were initiated.
  
  
• [SUP][15][/SUP]Ashurmamad Miraliev
  
  - Khusen Taramov: friend of Ibragim Todashev, denied reentry to the United States [SUP][16][/SUP] after visiting Chechnya, despite having a Green Card.
  [SUP][17][/SUP]Khusen Taramov
  
  Why hasn't Boston's "liberal" media made more noise about this? Arguably, the most newsworthy portion of Tsarnaev's motion for continuancepotential witness intimidationhas been glossed over or ignored in most mainstream media accounts.
  The Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations reached out to the media and the public to expose the intimidation and harassment of Todashev's friends and associatesand got a fair amount press coverage [SUP][18][/SUP] by their local media. The same cannot be said for the Boston area press.
  Have they, albeit indirectly, been intimidated, too? The Boston media has historically had a close relationship with law enforcement, and when it ever so slightly challenged the police, found its usual (and needed) sources shut down.
  However, if ever there was a moment for the local press to do the right thing, this is surely it.
  

WhoWhatWhy plans to continue doing this kind of groundbreaking original reporting. You can count on us. Can we count on you? What we do is only possible with your support.Please click here [SUP][19][/SUP] to donate; it's tax deductible. And it packs a punch.

---

Article printed from WhoWhatWhy: http://whowhatwhy.com
URL to article: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/10/02/boston-...continues/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads...e-team.jpg
[2] "war on witnesses": http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/10/29/feds-ac...f-friends/
[3] lawyers filed a motion: http://thebostonmarathonbombings.weebly....tidocs.pdf
[4] grant a two-month delay: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/25/us/tri....html?_r=0
[5] brush over that last part: http://www.nbcnews.com/news/crime-courts...al-n192286
[6] closing of their bank accounts.: http://whowhatwhy.com/2013/11/18/islamic...-business/
[7] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads...rview..jpg
[8] questionable history: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/05/17/todashe...as-secret/
[9] tactic ordinarily associated with mafia or drug cartel defendants: http://articles.latimes.com/1986-01-30/n...ia-lawyers
[10] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/1.jpg
[11] allege that the FBI: http://whowhatwhy.com/2014/06/27/fbi-han...1-mystery/
[12] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/2.jpg
[13] refusing to wear a wire: http://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2014/06...story.html
[14] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads...uzdeva.jpg
[15] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads...raliev.jpg
[16] denied reentry to the United States: http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/artic...-marathon/
[17] Image: http://whowhatwhy.com/wp-content/uploads...aramov.jpg
[18] press coverage: http://fl.cair.com/video/cairfl_claims_f...gency.html

[Magda Hassan]

Shocking new information in Tsarnaev case casts doubt on official story about the killing of Ibragim Todashev

Submitted by sosadmin on Tue, 10/28/2014 - 17:46

In a stunning reversal, federal prosecutors claim in an October 2014 court filing that they have "no evidence" to suggest Tamerlan Tsarnaev "participated in" a triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts in 2011. Officials had previously leaked to the press assertions precisely contrary to the new declaration. The federal government's new claim comes in response to motions filed by Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's attorneys seeking information from the government about Tamerlan's participation in the murders. Documents confirming Tamerlan's involvement in the 2011 murders would help the defense show that the elder Tsarnaev intimidated his younger brother.
By claiming to possess "no evidence" that Tamerlan was involved in the slayings, the DOJ might very well succeed in its goal to keep secret records related to the Waltham investigation and sought by the defense. But the reversal also comes at a cost: the federal government's credibility. The back and forthfirst Tamerlan did it, now he didn'traises troubling questions about the accuracy of official leaks pertaining to not just the murders, but also the circumstances surrounding the death of a Chechen immigrant at the FBI's hands in May 2013. It also shines a spotlight on the media's now common practice of granting federal officials anonymity to discuss important events, and shows how that practice enables the propagation of unreliable information meant to shape narratives favorable to the government. Those narratives, while perhaps helpful to federal agencies, are not always accurate.
Some background is required.
A few weeks after the April 15, 2013 Boston marathon bombings, ABC News published a shocking report linking bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his little brother to an unsolved, grisly triple murder in 2011 in Waltham. Local reporter Michele McPhee, whose publication of anonymous law enforcement leaks about the case is the subject of controversy in the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial, produced the scoop:

Massachusetts investigators have developed what they call "mounting evidence," bolstered by "forensic hits," that points to the possible involvement of both Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar in a gruesome, unsolved triple homicide in 2011, law enforcement officials told ABC News.

Not only was there possible DNA evidence linking the Tsarnaevs to the crime scene, ABC News reported. Officials also said they possessed cell phone location records tying the brothers to the crime.

[L]aw enforcement officials tell ABC News that some crime scene forensic evidence provided a match to the two Tsarnaev brothers. The officials also said records of cell phones used by the Tsarnaevs appear[] to put them in the area of the murders on that date. Several officials confirmed the new findings but declined to be identified because they are not authorized to comment on the ongoing investigation.

"Several officials confirmed" these "findings" to McPhee in early May 2013, weeks after the marathon bombings shook the city and the nation. The revelation about Tamerlan's involvement with the triple murder in 2011 was stunning. And there would be further shockers just around the corner.
Just a little over a week after McPhee's ABC News piece was published on May 10, the country woke up to yet more startling news: Overnight, an FBI agent from the Boston office and two Massachusetts State Police officials had interrogated and shot dead an alleged associate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev in his Orlando, Florida apartment. Ibragim Todashev, "federal officials" said, was under investigation for participating in the 2011 Waltham murders with the elder Tsarnaev.
The Orlando Sentinel:

Todashev, a 27-year-old mixed-martial-arts fighter, was being questioned about a 2011 triple slaying in Waltham, Mass., federal-law-enforcement sources told the Tribune Washington bureau.
Federal officials think he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the suspected Boston bombers, may have had a role in cutting the throats of three men and sprinkling marijuana over their bodies. One of the three Waltham victims, Brendan H. Mess, was described as a close friend of Tsarnaev's.

Later, government reports would claim that FBI agent Aaron McFarlane and Massachusetts State Troopers Curtis Cinelli and Joel Gagne (whose names were redacted from official documents but extracted by independent researchers) went down to Florida in order to interrogate Todashev about his possible links to the Waltham murders. Those official reports claim that Todashev was in the process of signing a confession implicating himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the triple murder when he suddenly attacked one of the troopers, provoking FBI agent McFarlane to shoot him dead. Journalist Susan Zalkind later obtained an unredacted copy of this supposed "confession." It is stained with blood and appears to read:

My name is IBRAGIM TODASHEV. I wanna tell the story about the robbery
me and Tam did in Waltham in September of 2011. That was [?] by Tamerlan. [?] [?] he [?] to me to rob the drug dealers. We went to their house we got in there and Tam had a gun he pointed it [?] the guy that
opened the door for us [?] we went upstairs into the house
[?] 3 guys in there [?] we put them on the ground and then we [?] [?] taped their hands up

After killing Todashev and claiming that he was in the middle of confessing to a triple murder when he was shot, federal officials proceeded to round up and arrest or deport a number of his friends, including his girlfriend. In later interviews, his girlfriend denied that Todashev had anything to do with the 2011 murders. Over a year later, in October 2014, one of the few people who knew Todashev and remains in the United States, his former mother in law, appeared outside the Boston federal courthouse where the Tsarnaev trial was in session. She held a sign with a photograph of Todashev on it, reading "I am dead because I knew Tsarnaevs. I knew the truth."
The federal government appears to want it both ways, leaking to the press over and over again that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was involved in the Waltham murders, and then, when it suits them, turning around in court and saying the exact opposite. Thania DiazClevenger, Civil Rights Director for Florida's chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), is incredulous, raising important questions:

The recent revelation that the government has no evidence linking Tsarnaev to the Waltham murders reinforces that the government account regarding the circumstances surrounding the killing of Ibragim Todashev cannot be trusted. It contradicts the original reason given for the questioning of Ibragim. It raises the question of why Ibragim Todashev was questioned by the FBI to begin with and whether the alleged confession by Ibragim was coerced or a pretext used to harm Ibragim's reputation in order to justify the FBI shooting.

CAIR-Florida says it is preparing legal action "to seek justice for the family of Ibragim Todashev." An ongoing ACLU of Massachusetts lawsuit against US Attorney Carmen Ortiz aims to produce information from the DOJ about Ibrahim Todashev, including copies of portions of his interrogation that Massachusetts State Police officials reportedly video- and audiotaped.
But even if we never learn anything more about what happened in Orlando in May 2013, the US Attorney's recent court filing makes one thing clear: Either agents of the federal government misstated the facts in leaks to the public, or the US Attorney is now misstating the facts to a federal judge. It's difficult to imagine how the anonymous, official leaks to the press about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's alleged involvement in the Waltham murders could have been true if Ortiz' recent claimthat the feds have "no evidence" implicating Tsarnaevis also true. First the feds told reporters they had "mounting," "forensic" evidence, including cell phone location records, tying Tamerlan to those killings. Now the feds say they have nothing.
It's not the first time the prosecution against Tsarnaev has issued a bombshell in court, directly contradicting things law enforcement had leaked to the press and that became the given narrative of events. After the bombings, officials told journalists that the brothers built the bombs inside Tamerlan's Cambridge apartment. The anonymous law enforcement officials who leaked these claims even provided specific details about that supposed evidence. The following year, Carmen Ortiz would file a brief in the Tsarnaev case asserting the exact opposite: The feds are sure the bombs were not built at the Cambridge apartment, the motion says.
The public is getting taken for a ride. Perhaps instead of aggressively prosecuting stoner teenagers who the FBI itself admits had nothing to do with the marathon bombings, federal law enforcement should get its house in order. Selling the public a simple narrative and then turning around and demolishing it in court provides the makings for a good screenplay about FBI and DOJ incompetence. But it's not how the federal government should be conducting itself in the nation's highest profile terrorism investigation since 9/11. The victims of the Waltham murders and the Boston marathon bombingsand the publicdeserve the truth. Based off the federal government's own statements alone, it's impossible to know what that is.

http://privacysos.org/node/1573

[David Guyatt]

Many realised from the evidence, such as it was, that the Todashev killing was murder. The question remains why?

[David Guyatt]

According to this article, it's all pre-judged - the consensus is that Tsarnaev is already guilty - it's just a case of whether he will get the death penalty or life imprisonment?

A state trial where a guilty verdict is a certainty used to be the stuff of the old Soviet Union. Funny how times change things around completely.

Boston Marathon bombings trial: Tsarnaev jury selection begins

Jury to decide whether Dzhokhar Tsarnaev carried out bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260 in April 2013

• Associated Press in Boston
  
• The Guardian, Monday 5 January 2015 08.54 GMT
  

Heather Abbott, who lost part of her left leg in the Boston marathon bombings, is one of the victims who will attend the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Jury selection for the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused in the Boston Marathon attacks, begins on Monday, with those chosen to decide whether Tsarnaev planned and carried out the twin bombings that killed three people and injured more than 260 near the finish line of the race on 15 April 2013.
If they find him guilty, they will decide whether he should be put to death.
It is perhaps the most closely watched federal death penalty case since Timothy McVeigh was convicted and executed for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Tsarnaev's lawyers tried in vain for months to get the trial moved, arguing the Boston jury pool was tainted because of the number of locals with connections to the race. They drew parallels to the McVeigh case, which was moved for similar reasons.
Jury selection is expected to take several weeks because of extensive media coverage. The process also could be slowed if potential jurors express objections to the death penalty.
Some legal observers say Tsarnaev's lawyers, facing powerful evidence against him, will probably focus their energies on the penalty phase, when they could present mitigating evidence to spare his life.
Prosecutors say 21-year-old Dzhokhar and his brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev ethnic Chechens who had lived in the US for about a decade carried out the bombings as retaliation for US actions in Muslim countries. They are also accused of killing a Massachusetts Institute of Technology police officer. Tamerlan, 26, died after a firefight with police several days after the bombings.
Dzhokhar was captured later that day, wounded and bloodied, hiding inside a boat stored in a suburban yard. Prosecutors said he described a motive in a note written in the boat saying "The US government is killing our innocent civilians" and "We Muslims are one body, you hurt one you hurt us all."
Tsarnaev's lawyers may lay the groundwork for some kind of mental health explanation, said Christopher Dearborn, a professor at Suffolk University law school. That could include any persecution his family might have suffered as ethnic minorities in Kyrgyzstan, where the brothers spent most of their lives before moving to the US with their parents and two sisters.
"I think the real value in that may be to start to try to generate even a little bit of empathy around this and humanise the kid a little bit, hopefully enough to save a life," Dearborn said.
At least one of three college friends convicted of lying or impeding the investigation is expected to testify against Tsarnaev. Another friend who pleaded guilty to possessing a gun used to kill a police officer during the manhunt is also expected to testify for the prosecution.
Supporters of Tsarnaev have demonstrated outside the courthouse during pretrial hearings.
Heather Abbott, who lost part of her left leg in the bombings, is one of several victims who plan to attend at least part of the trial. She said she hoped to gain some understanding of the motive.
"I don't see it as something that will get me past the horror of that day," she said. "It's something that I will always live with."

[Peter Lemkin]

Incredible they can't get a change of venue...Boston will not be a fair place for the trial...and will likely drag this entire matter out [unless he dies before it ends of some 'suicide' or 'accident'...a very likely outcome, IMHO]...as most appeals courts would require a retrial based on the venue being biased. But your point is well taken, that it is basically does he spend life in prison or face the death penalty [if Mass. has the death penalty]....even though from what evidence I've heard and seen, he is likely [along with this dead brother] innocent - except of having been entrapped in some strange ways....but so it goes in the Empire. ::

[Peter Lemkin]

Justice or Vengeance?: ACLU Raises Concerns as Boston Marathon Bombing Trial Begins

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Jury selection began Monday in the case of "The United States v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev," one of the most high-profile federal trials in decades. The 21-year-old Tsarnaev is accused of planting bombs near the finish line at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and wounded more than 260. It was the nation's worst bombing since the Oklahoma City attack of 1995. Tsarnaev faces 30 counts, more than half carrying the death penalty. Jury selection will take several weeks followed by a trial of up to five months. But as bombing victims and the wider Boston community search for closure, concerns around due process could prolong the case for years. Ahead of the trial, defense attorneys unsuccessfully tried to move the proceedings out of state, saying their client can't receive a fair trial in the city where the bombing occurred. Federal prosecutors are also seeking the death penalty in a state where executions are barred. That will mean harsh constraints on the jury pool, ruling out anyone who opposes capital punishment. In a dissent to the First Circuit Appeals Court's rejection of a trial delay, Judge Juan R. Torruella criticized the decision to proceed with the case, writing: "Such a rushed and frenetic process is the antithesis of due process." We discuss the Boston Marathon bombing trial and its due process concerns with Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

AARON MATÉ: One of the most high-profile federal trials in decades is underway. On Monday, jury selection began in the case of The U.S. v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the alleged Boston Marathon bomber. Tsarnaev, who is 21 years old, is accused of planting bombs that killed three people and wounded more than 260. It was the nation's worst bombing since the Oklahoma City attack of 1995. Tsarnaev is also charged for the ensuing events, when he and his brother, Tamerlan, allegedly shot dead a police officer and sparked a citywide manhunt. Tamerlan died after a firefight with police. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev faces 30 counts, more than half carrying the death penalty. Jury selection will take several weeks, followed by a trial of up to five months. Survivors and victims' families are expected to attend. Heather Abbott, who lost her left leg below the knee, said the trial will be difficult, but also a healing process for the victims.

HEATHER ABBOTT: I expect it to be emotional. You know, I'm sure that it's not going to be an easy time. But for me, it's something that I want to at least experience attending forI think just for some sort of peace of mind to see, you know, the person who changed my life forever. And I've become close with many of the other bombing victims, particularly the amputees. So, I think, you know, to be able to support each other through this time will be important.

AARON MATÉ: Boston Marathon bombing survivor Heather Abbott. But as victims like her and the wider Boston community search for closure, concerns around due process could prolong the case for years.
AMY GOODMAN: Ahead of the trial, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's attorneys unsuccessfully tried to move the proceedings out of state, saying their client can't receive a fair trial in the city where the bombing occurred. The defense cited the case of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, whose trial was moved out of state. But over the weekend a divided federal appeals court rejected the defense's motion.
Federal prosecutors are also seeking the death penalty in a state where executions are barredthat's Massachusetts. That will mean harsh constraints on the jury pool, ruling out anyone who opposes capital punishment.
Defense lawyers have also unsuccessfully argued they haven't had enough time to pour over thousands of newly released government documents. There's also the matter of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's arrest. At the time, authorities used a public safety exception to delay reading him his Miranda rights to remain silent and to have an attorney present, a move that sparked controversy. It was before he was read his rights that he reportedly admitted to a role in the bombings. All of these issues could come up on appeal, a possibility that may keep this case in the courts for a long time to come.
For more on the Boston Marathon bombing trial and its due process concerns, we're joined by Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. Her article is headlined "Tsarnaev Trial Will Test What It Means To Be 'Boston Strong.'" It was published on Monday.
Carol Rose, welcome to Democracy Now! Can you talk about the climate right now in Boston and your major concerns about this trial?
CAROL ROSE: Right, well, I mean, I think the key here is whether this is going to be a trial that's about vengeance or that it's going to be a trial about justice. Are we going to be ruled by our values, or are we going to be ruled by our fears? The climate here in Boston is a media circus, as you can imagine. It's sort of 24/7 around this trial. It's where everybody's focus is, just as it was where everyone's focus was during the lockdown, the shelter-in-place order that came out in the days immediately following the bombing. And that's one of the reasons that the ACLU and others have a lot of concerns about the due process, whether there can in fact be a fundamentally fair trial for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, because ita test here. This isn't just a test or a trial of his guilt or innocence; it's really a test of whether we as Americans are going to let people who use violence shake us from our values, shake us from our commitment to due process, to fundamental fairness and to the American system of justice. And I think that's what's at stake right now.
AARON MATÉ: Well, Carol, let's go through your concerns. Talk about the death penalty in a state that bars capital punishment.
CAROL ROSE: Right. Well, so, Massachusetts hasis a non-death penalty state. So, this is a federal trial, so the federal government, Eric Holder's decision, is to come in here and pursue a death penalty trial nonetheless. What that means is that when you're trying to qualify a jury, it has to be death-qualified, is what it's called, or death-certified. That means they'll be asking every juror whether or not they're opposed to the death penalty. And if they are fundamentally opposed to the death penalty, they'll be kicked off the case. They can't serve on the jury. So, what does that mean when you want to have a jury of your peers, when you're in a state where, in general, the peers are opposed to the death penalty, but we're going to have a jury that's death-qualified? So, that's just one of the many due process concerns that have been raised.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Carol Rose
CAROL ROSE: And unfortunatelyyes?
AMY GOODMAN: Tell us what that means. I mean, who ends up being on a death penalty jury? Who gets excluded? Who gets included?
CAROL ROSE: Right, well, there's going to be a series of questions that will be asked of every juror. And if a juror has said, do youcould you possiblyare you opposed to the death penalty on religious grounds in all instances, you will not be on the jury. But it will be the judge that makes that decision. So it won't be the prosecutors having to use one of their peremptory challenges to get that person off the jury.
AMY GOODMAN: And so, in terms of populationsfor example, African Americans overwhelmingly against the death penalty, Jews overwhelmingly
CAROL ROSE: Women.
AMY GOODMAN: against the death penalty, womenso, who ends up on pro-death penalty juries?
CAROL ROSE: Well, studies have shown that you have a far morenot onlyso, the trial is bifurcated: There's the guilt phase, and then there's the sentencing phase. But studies have shown that when you have a death-qualified jury, then you end up having a lot more people who are likely to find them guilty in the guilt-finding phase, in addition to imposing the death penalty down the road. So you areyou know, in this case, you're more likely to have a jury not only to findinghave a finding of guilty, but also to be willing to impose the death penalty, than would a general representative jury that represents the people of Massachusetts.
AARON MATÉ: Well, Carol, the Justice Department announced that it would pursue the death penalty in the Tsarnaev case last January. Now, as we say, executions at the federal level are rare. But Attorney General Eric Holder explained his decision in a statement. He said, quote, "After consideration of the relevant facts, the applicable regulations and the submissions made by the defendant's counsel, I have determined that the United States will seek the death penalty in this matter. The nature of the conduct at issue and the resultant harm compel this decision." What were the government's options? And do you see a political decision here in this decision to seek capital punishment?
CAROL ROSE: Well, Eric Holder and U.S. Attorney for Massachusetts Carmen Ortiz definitely had an alternative. They could have gone forward and proffered a plea deal to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. For example, it could have been life without possibility of parole, life without appeal; you agree to be locked away forever and to do your time for your crime, in exchange, no death penalty. The government never did that. The government never offered that.
And I think that there are number of reasons. I mean, we can only speculate, but what people in the legal community here in Boston are speculating is in fact that this might be a chance for Eric Holder to show that Article III federal courts are capable of doing these big terrorism trials, and therefore we don't need the military commissions in Guantánamo. It could be that the prosecutors want to be part of a high-profile case and tap into the sense of tremendous anger and a feeling of a desire for vengeance that's very widespread in Boston right now. People are really traumatized by what happened, which is one of the reasons it's a problem about getting a fair jury trial in Boston, because people are traumatized by it. So, there's a number of reasons, sort of political reasons, that they would have decided to go forward.
But the problem with that is that if you haveif there had been a plea trial, then the first part of the trial, the guilt or innocence part, wouldn't happen. You would only have the sentencing phase. And during a sentencing phase, when there's been a plea like that, in general, the defendant doesn't really talk. It's really about the survivors. It's about the people who have come forward, like the person we just heard from, to be able to tell their stories and to be able to talk about the healing process and to move forward. When instead the prosecution chooses to pursue a death penalty trial, first we have to relive every last detail of what happened and go through all of that, which can be retraumatizing for people who are survivors and for all of us.
But beyond that, during the sentencing phase, it's really going to be about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. It's going to be about his youth, who he was influenced by, whether or not he did too many drugs, whether or not his big brother influenced him, what a good guy he was at the high school. It's going to be about him, as it should be in those cases, because it's his life on the line. But it won't be about the survivors, and therefore there's a real chance that if you pursue this, you're going to create a martyr of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev among people who somehow decide that he is the person they want to back. He could be an inspiration to people around the world who would also use violence as a way to achieve their means or to make their statements in America. And it really is a setback for what we, as Americans, want, which is to move forward, to have healing and to have justice rather than vengeance.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Carol Rose, the issue of moving the venue? Timothy McVeigh was tried in Colorado, is that right, not in Oklahoma?
CAROL ROSE: That's right, in a case that was very similar. It was an indiscriminate bombing. There were children killed and hurt in both instances. The whole city and surrounding area was really traumatized emotionally by it. And the judge in that case, I think, correctly said, "You know, it's important that, especially in these cases that are so political and high visibility, that we as Americans set the highest standards of due process, that we prove to people who would use violence that we won't be deterred from our values, from our system of justice. We will go over and above to make sure there's a fair trial." And that's why, in the Timothy McVeigh case, they moved the trial out of state. He was still convicted. But there was no doubt that he had a fair trial.
The concern here is, if you don't do that, there's going to be multiple issues for appeal. There's going to be a perception, either in the country and certainly internationally, that somehow Dzhokhar Tsarnaev didn't get a fair trial, and therefore there's going to be delays in any execution. And beyond that, we're going to be living with it for years to come and have the real sad danger of the possibility of turning this guy, who used violence against so many people, into a martyr. And that's a shame.
AARON MATÉ: And, Carol, to a skeptic who might say, "Why is this important? Why is the ACLU raising all these concerns around the rights of someone who is most likely guilty, who has admitted to a role in the bombing?" what's your response?
CAROL ROSE: You know, this isn't a trial about Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's guilt or innocence. I think the evidence, most people would agree, is rather overwhelming. This is a trial about who we are. This is a trial about whether we, as Americans, are going to let people who use violence against us somehow shake us from our fundamental values, a commitment to due process and fundamental fairness, a commitment to constitutional values. The ACLU represents the Constitution and the Bill of Rights as it applies to everyone. But this trial isn't about the bad guys. This is a trial about Americans, about who we are. And that's why the ACLU cares.
AMY GOODMAN: And the issue of Miranda rights, how important is this, when Tsarnaev made his confession, when he was read his Miranda rights, what the public security exception is?
CAROL ROSE: Well, I think this is, again, yet another issue that's going to be on appeal and is going to keep this case with us for many years, because there wasn'thasn't been a plea bargain. I think the question of your rights in the immediate aftermath of getting arrested are hugely important to all of us. And again, the law as it's set in one case can't be different than in other cases. And I think all Americans really care about having their rights, knowing what their rights are, so you can't be taken away by law enforcement and somehow coerced into saying something that you wouldn't otherwise say because you don't have a lawyer present. So, whether or notyou know, nobody, very few of us, certainly not me, like this particular guy, but what we're talking about are the principles and the law and the precedent that's behind it. And we do care about those rights when they apply to us, so it's important to remember that the rights at issue are not just Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's, they're the rights of every American.
AARON MATÉ: And, Carol, can you talk about the death of Ibragim Todashev? He is the Chechen man who was shot dead by FBI agents in Florida while being questioned about his ties to the Boston Marathon bombers? Are there still unanswered questions about his death?
CAROL ROSE: Yeah, a tremendous number of unanswered questions about the shooting death by FBI in Bostonor, excuse me, Massachusetts State Police troopers down in Florida. Immediately in the aftermath of the bombing, the police announced that suddenly they had decided to pin a longtime murder, a triple homicidethree guys were killed a couple years before the Boston Marathon bombing. Suddenly they said, "Oh, we found the guy who did it." They had not solved the case. And they just said it was Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. Initially, they said that Dzhokhar was involved, and then they changed it and said, no, it was actually Tamerlan Tsarnaev and a man named Ibragim Todashev.
The Boston FBI and the Massachusetts State Police went down to Florida to interview him. Their story was that in the course of writing his confession, he jumped at them, or something happened. In any event, they shot him. They shot him dead. And then they basically deported everybody who knew anything about the case, including Todashev's girlfriend. So, there's aand then there's been no independent investigation of why, what happened in the shooting and what really went down. So there's this huge mystery about the role of Ibragim Todashev and his involvement with the [Tsarnaev] brothers, withand the involvement in the shooting death.
The hard drive for Ibragim Todashev's computer was finally turned over to the defense team only two weeks ago, along with about 9,000 or some new documents that the prosecution finally turned over. That's one of the reasons, from a fundamental fairness or due process perspective, the defense requested to have additional time to prepare for the trial. There are so many unanswered questions about the role of the police and the FBI in the shooting of Ibragim Todashev and the relationship of that to the Tamerlanor, to the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial.
This trial is going to go on for many, many months. There are a tremendous number of unanswered questions. And at this point, if the trial is going forward and we're not going to have a plea, then, at the minimum, we need to bend over backwards to make sure that we're going to have a fundamentally fair trial, so that we can use this to really recommit or show a recommitment to our justice system, and rather than sort of a rush to execution.
AMY GOODMAN: And the case of Robel Phillipos, Tsarnaev's friend who was convicted of lying to the FBI, his attorneys said they're going to appeal. Where does that stand right now, and how does that fit into this?
CAROL ROSE: Well, that fits into this. I mean, there are a number of people who knew Dzhokhar Tsarnaev or had a relationship to him who have been rounded up by the police, by the FBI, by the prosecution, many of whom may or may not be called in this trial. Phillipos was convicted ofwhen you say lying to the FBI, what he said is "I don't remember. I was too high to remember." So, that was his lie. He was convicted. There, I think, is an appeal, and my understanding is that that is going to be heard later on in this month.