Breaking: Explosion Reported at Boston Marathon's Finish Line

[Dawn Meredith]

I thought Judy Clarke was court-appointed. Defendants don't get to choose court appointed counsel.


As an example, do you truly suppose a jury would have failed to convict Oswald back in the 60's? Or that a judge would have allowed chain of custody issues to stand in the way of that freight train? Now, however, with decades of research and the patient unraveling of the evidence in that case, things are different.

In Dallas? Possibly. But I have always believed that a decent lawyer could have easily gotten an acquittal.

[Drew Phipps]

I thought Judy Clarke was court-appointed. Defendants don't get to choose court appointed counsel.


As an example, do you truly suppose a jury would have failed to convict Oswald back in the 60's? Or that a judge would have allowed chain of custody issues to stand in the way of that freight train? Now, however, with decades of research and the patient unraveling of the evidence in that case, things are different.

In Dallas? Possibly. But I have always believed that a decent lawyer could have easily gotten an acquittal.

Now? Yes. Then? No.

[David Guyatt]

Sometimes it is the simplest things that prove a case, or clearly demonstrate an injustice. Such is the case with Dzhakhar Tsarnaev.

The below is from SootNet:

Update on the Boston Marathon Bomb case - Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is not guilty

Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts Org
Wed, 30 Mar 2016 20:12 UTC

© Associated Press
Tsarnaev.

Movies are used to set official stories in stone, and a movie is going to be made about the heroic capture of a badly wounded 19 year old kid, not old enough to buy a beer, who, despite being shot up and severely wounded, is alleged to have written a confession in the dark on the side of a boat under which he was hiding to escape execution. Apparently, the 10,000 troops who violated the US Constitution and searched the houses of a shutdown Boston without warrants are going to be credited for "saving America from terrorism."

I find it difficult to believe that a shot-up kid, who had to be put into intensive care when he was discovered, who was hiding from execution under an upturned boat, spent what little energy and life force he had left writing a confession in the dark on the inside of a boat. What convenient instrument to write with did he happen to have on hand?

Why would we believe assurances of such an unlikely confession from the same lying government that assured the world that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction justifying a multi-trillion dollar invasion that destroyed a county? We know for a fact that Saddam Hussein most certainly did not have weapons of mass destruction as President Bush later admitted, and even if he had, such possession is no justification for illegal US aggression that destroyed a country. Why would we believe a government that assured the world that Syrian president Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his own people, which we know for a fact was Washington's made up excuse for invasion?

One wonders how much the Boston Marathon Bombing movie makers have been paid for setting the official story in stone. As one correspondent asked: "I'm wondering how they are going to portray Boston cops as heroes as they kill the older brother and then surround an unarmed teenager who is hiding under a boat. They start firing...they put a bullet through his face but the damned kid won't die! Heroic Senator John McCain then explains how Miranda rights don't apply in his case. Suddenly it's discovered that while hiding in the boat he's written a confession on the inside of the boat with a Sharpie..."

John Remington Graham has 48 years of legal experience as a defense attorney and as a prosecutor. An aunt of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is herself an attorney in the Russian Federation, requested John Remington Graham to assist her in making an amicus curiae intervention in the federal district court in Boston. Mr. Graham has since written to the US Attorney General about conflicts between the government's evidence and the guilty conviction. After three months, he has received no answer, an indication that the US Department of Justice has no interest whatsoever in what appears to be a wrongful conviction carrying a death sentence.

Mr. Graham brings us up-to-date on what has the appearance of judicial murder of another innocent in order to serve the secret agenda of the military/security complex. "America is under attack," so we need a police state to protect us and more money for wars abroad that take the lives of massive numbers of innocents, while economic conditions at home drive the American people deeper into the ground.

Here is John Remington Graham's statement of the miscarriage of justice:

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev Is Not Guilty

John Remington Graham

The government of the United States has prosecuted Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in the knowledge that its evidence proves he is not guilty.

On August 17, 2015, Paul Craig Roberts published an account of the amicus curiae intervention by Maret Tsarnaeva, paternal aunt of the accused and a lawyer resident in the Russian Federation, before the federal district court in Massachusetts in the infamous prosecution of her nephew Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, on an indictment charging him with detonating a pressure-cooker bomb on Boyston Street in Boston on April 15, 2013, causing death or injury to many persons. Mr. Tsarnaev was sentenced to death on June 17, 2015. Dr. Roberts' account was published widely in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Russia. The report quotes verbatim from pertinent documents made part of public record by court order. The link to the said report is here.

While a number of other serious anomalies in this prosecution have been noted by highly qualified observers, the most decisive and indisputable facts of public record are these: From evidence at the scene of the explosions, the FBI crime lab definitively established on April 16, 2013, that the culprits, whoever they were, carried large, heavy-laden black backpacks concealing pressure-cooker bombs.

This information was not a mere temporary investigative hypothesis, but was incorporated into the indictment returned on June 17, 2013, and was part of the government's case going into trial.

On April 18, 2013, the FBI identified the culprits from a private street video, showing the brothers Tsarnaev on Boylston Street prior to the explosions. Two still-frames from this street video were used in FBI posters advising the public of the identity of the suspects. These two still-frames do not clearly portray what these young men were carrying on their backs. But a third still-frame from the same street video shows Dzhokhar from the rear, carrying over his right shoulder a small, light-weight, white backpack, with no bulging or sagging as would have appeared if he had carried a heavy pressure cooker bomb as claimed by the FBI and alleged in the indictment. Because the white backpack Dzhokhar carried is not the black backpack carried by the accused bomber as stated in the indictment, Dzhokhar stands excluded as a suspect and is necessarily not guilty as charged.

Alleged confessions or statements of self-incrimination introduced against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are disproved by the findings of the FBI crime lab and the street video used by the FBI to identify the culprits. In other words, the street video shows that the backpack carried by Mr. Tsarnaev does not match and has the opposite characteristics of the backpack which the FBI crime lab determined was carried by the guilty party. Therefore, no alleged admission of guilt by Dzhokhar can be true.

In a criminal case, if the prosecution attempts to prove that the accused or a co-conspirator admitted wrongdoing, but objective evidence in the possession of public authority indicates that the accused did not commit the crime, the admission is worthless. The objective evidence stands, and the finding must be not guilty.

Widely published photographs reveal that, near the crime scene, at or about the time of the explosions, there were men in military-style jackets, pants, boots, and hats with identical logos carrying large black backpacks that matched perfectly the findings of the FBI crime lab. But these men were not investigated, questioned, or charged. The presence of these individuals was never mentioned during the trial of Mr. Tsarnaev.

Instead, Dzhokhar's court-appointed lawyer forcibly told the jury he was guilty, although, as she well knew, FBI-generated evidence proved that Dzhokhar, at the time and place of the explosions, was carrying a backpack totally different from the backpack that the FBI proved was carried by the guilty party.

On January 7, 2016, as directed by Maret Tarnaeva, I sent a petition to Loretta Lynch, Attorney General of the United States who is now the legal custodian of Mr. Tsarnaev. This petition describes and includes key exhibits of public record, and requests her to intervene in the case in order to prevent wrongful conviction and execution. The attorney general is obligated to intervene under rules of legal ethics promulgated by the American Bar Association that are universally accepted throughout the United States.

The governing principle is that a public prosecutor must refuse to charge, or must seek dismissal of an accusation, when evidence in the possession of public authority shows that there is no probable cause, or that probable cause, once established, no longer exists or ceases to be credible. This principle has been faithfully observed in our time by Cyrus Vance Jr., state district attorney in New York City, in the prosecution of Dominique Strauss-Kahn when it was discovered that the main witness against the accused was a con artist trying to shake him down, and also by Jim Mattox, attorney general of Texas, once it was learned that guilty pleas of Henry Lee Lucas were false in light of undeniable, objective evidence.

Federal prosecutors, court-appointed counsel for the accused, and the major news media are aware of the basic facts here outlined; yet, acting together, they have misled the general public, and managed to convict an individual obviously not guilty. The attorney general of the United States has been duly advised of the situation but has failed to do anything about it or even to acknowledge or reply to my letter.

John Remington Graham of the Minnesota Bar (#3664X), jrgraham@novicomfusion.co

The linked article by Paul Craig Roberts follows below. It is daming:

FBI Evidence Proves Innocence of Accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

August 17, 2015 | Categories: Articles & Columns | Tags: | Print This Article

FBI Evidence Proves Innocence of Accused Boston Marathon Bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev
Paul Craig Roberts
I have been contacted by attorney John Remington Graham, a member in good standing of the bar of the Minnesota Supreme Court and the United States Supreme Court. He informs me that acting in behalf of Maret Tsanaeva, the aunt of the accused Tsamaev brothers and a citizen of the Kyrgyz Republic where she is qualified to practice law, he has assisted her in filing with the US District Court in Boston a pro se motion, including an argument of amicus curiae, and an affidavit of Maret Tsarnaeva. The presiding judge has ordered that these documents be included in the formal record of the case so they will be publicly accessible. The documents are reproduced below.
The documents argue that on the basis of the evidence provided by the FBI, there is no basis for the indictment of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev. The FBI's evidence clearly concludes that the bomb was in a black knapsack, but the photographs used to establish Dzhokhar's presence at the marathon show him with a white knapsack. Moreover, the knapsack lacks the heavy bulging appearance that a knapsack containing a bomb would have.
As readers know, I have been suspicious of the Boston Marathon Bombing from the beginning. It seems obvious that both Tsamaev brothers were intended to be killed in the alleged firefight with police, like the alleged perpetrators of the Charlie Hebdo affair in Paris. Convenient deaths in firefights are accepted as indications of guilt and solve the problem of trying innocent patsies.
In Dzhokhar's case, his guilt was established not by evidence but by accusations, by the betrayal of his government-appointed public defender Judy Clarke who declared Dzhokhar's guilt in her opening statement of her "defense," by an alleged confession, evidence of which was never provided, written by Dzhokhar on a boat under which the badly wounded youth lay dying until discovered by the boat owner and hospitalized in critical condition. Following his conviction by his defense attorney, Dzhokhar allegedly confessed again in jihadist terms. As legal scholars have known for centuries, confessions are worthless as indicators of guilt.
Dzhokhar was not convicted on the basis of evidence.
In my questioning of John Remington Graham, I concluded that despite 48 years of active experience with criminal justice, both as a prosecuting attorney and defense attorney, he was shocked to his core by the legal malfeasance of the Tsarnaev case. As Graham is nearing the end of his career, he is willing to speak out, but he could not find a single attorney in the state of Massachusetts who would sponsor his appearance before the Federal District Court in Boston.
This tells me that fear of retribution has now extended its reach into the justice (sic) system and that the America that we knew where law was a shield of the people no longer exists.
Here is the Affidavit of Maret Tsarnaeva:

AFFIDAVIT OF MARET TSARNAEVA CONCERNING THE PROSECUTION OF DZHOKHAR TSARNAEV
Mindful that this affidavit may be filed or displayed as an offer of proof with her authorization in public proceedings contemplated by the laws of the United States of America, and in reliance upon Title 28 of the United States Code, Section 1746, Maret Tsarnaeva deposes and says:
I am the paternal aunt of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who has been prosecuted before the United States District Court for Massachusetts upon indictment of a federal grand jury returned on June 27, 2013, for causing one of two explosions on Boylston Street in Boston on April 15, 2013. In the count for conspiracy, certain other overt acts of wrongdoing are mentioned. As I understand the indictment, if Dzhokhar did not carry and detonate an improvised explosive device or pressure-cooker bomb as alleged, all thirty counts fail, although perhaps some lingering questions, about which I offer no comment here, might remain for resolution, subject to guarantees of due process of law, within the jurisdiction of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
I am currently living in Grozny, the capital of Chechnya which is a republic within the Russian Federation. My academic training included full-time studies in a five-year program of the Law Faculty at the Kyrgyz State University, and I also hold the degree of master of laws (LL. M.), with focus on securities laws, granted by the University of Manitoba while I lived in Canada. I am qualified to practice law in Kyrgyzstan. I am fluent in Russian, Chechen, and English, and am familiar with other languages. I am prepared to testify under oath in public proceedings in the United States, if my expenses are paid, and if my personal safety and right of return to my home in Chechnya are adequately assured in advance.
Aside from other anomalies and other aspects of the case on which I make no comment here, I am aware of several photo exhibits, upon which the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) relied, or of evidence which their crime laboratory has produced, and certain other reports or material. Together, these plainly show that Dzhokhar was not carrying a large, nylon, black backpack, including a white-rectangle marking at the top, and containing a heavy pressure- cooker bomb, shortly before explosions in Boston on April 15, 2013, as claimed by the FBI and as alleged in the indictment for both explosions. On the contrary, these photo exhibits show unmistakably that Dzhokhar was carrying over his right shoulder a primarily white backpack which was light in weight, and was not bulging or sagging as would have been evident if it contained a heavy pressure-cooker bomb. The only reasonable conclusion is that Dzhokhar was not responsible for either of the explosions in question.
On or about June 20-21, 2013, during their first trip to Russia, which lasted about ten days more or less, Judy Clarke and William Fick, lawyers from the federal public defender's office in Boston, visited my brother Anzor Tsarnaev, and his wife Zubeidat, respectively the father and mother of Dzhokhar. The meeting was at the home of Dzhokhar's parents in Makhachka which is in the republic of Dagestan adjacent to the republic of Chechnya, and about three hours' drive from Grozny. My mother, my sister Malkan, and I were present at this meeting. Zubeidat speaks acceptable English. Mr. Fick is fluent in Russian.
Laying aside other details of the conversation on June 20-21, 2013, I wish to note the following:
The lawyers from Boston strongly advised that Anzor and Zubeidat refrain from saying in public that Dzhokhar and his brother Tamerlan were not guilty. They warned that, if their advice were not followed, Dzhokhar's life in custody near Boston would be more difficult;
Mme Clarke and Mr. Fick also requested of Anzor and Zubeidat that they assist in influencing Dzhokhar to accept the legal representation of the federal public defender's office in Boston. Mr. Fick revealed that Dzhokhar was refusing the services of the federal public defender's office in Boston, and sending lawyers and staff away when they visited him in custody. In reaction to the suggestion of Mr. Fick, lively discussion followed;
As Dzhokhar's family, we expressed our concern that the federal public defender's office in Boston was untrustworthy, and might not defend Dzhokhar properly, since they were paid by the government of the United States which was prosecuting him, as many believe for political reasons. Dzhokhar's parents expressed willingness to engage independent counsel, since Dzhokhar did not trust his government-appointed lawyers. Mr. Fick reacted by saying that the government agents and lawyers would obstruct independent counsel;
I proposed that Dzhokhar's family hire independent counsel to work with the federal public defender's office in order to assure proper and effective representation of Dzhokhar. Mr. Fick replied that, if independent counsel were hired by the family, the federal public defender's office in Boston would withdraw;
Mr. Fick then assured Anzor and Zubeidat that the United States Department of Justice had allotted $5 million to Dzhokhar's defense, and that the federal public defender's office in Boston intended to defend Dzhokhar properly. Zubeidat then and there said little concerning assurances of Mr. Fick. But for my part, I never believed that the federal public defender's office in Boston ever intended to defend Dzhokhar as promised. And my impressions from what happened during the trial lead me to believe that the federal public defender's office in Boston did not defend Dzhokhar competently and ethically.
In any event, I am aware that, following the meeting on June 20-21, 2013, Mme Clarke and Mr. Fick continued to spend time with Anzor and Zubeidat, and eventually persuaded Zubeidat to sign a typed letter in Russian to Dzhokhar, urging him to cooperate wholeheartedly with the federal public defender's office in Boston. I am informed by my sister Malkan, that Zubeidat gave the letter to the public defenders, shortly before their departure from Russia on or about June 29, 2013, for delivery to Dzhokhar.
During subsequent trips Mme Clarke and Mr. Fick to see Dzhokhar's parents in Makhachkala, the strategy for defending Dzhokhar was explained, as I learned from my sister Malkan. The public defender's office in Boston intended to contend at trial, as actually has happened since, that Tamerlan, now deceased, was the mastermind of the crime, and that Dzhokhar was merely following his big brother. I was firmly opposed to this strategy as morally and legally wrong, because Dzhokhar is not guilty, as FBI-generated evidence shows. Some ill- feeling has since developed between myself and Dzhokhar's parents over their acquiescence.
On or about June 19, 2014, during their visit to Grozny over nearly two weeks, three staff members from the public defender's office in Boston visited my mother and sisters in Grozny. I am told that they also visited Dzhokhar's parents in Makhachkala.
The personnel visiting my mother and sisters in Grozny on or about June 19, 2014, included one Charlene, who introduced herself as an independent investigator, working in and with the federal public defender's office in Boston; another by the name of Jane, a social worker who claimed to have spoken with Dzhokhar; and a third, by the name of Olga, who was a Russian- English interpreter from New Jersey. They did not leave business cards, but stayed at the main hotel in Grozny, hence I presume that their surnames can be ascertained.
I was not present at the meeting in Grozny on or about June 19, 2014, but my sister Malkan, who was present, called me by telephone immediately after the meeting concluded. She revealed to me then the details of the conversation at the meeting. Malkan and I have since spoken about the visit on several occasions.
Malkan speaks Russian and Chechen and is willing to testify under oath in public proceedings in the United States through an interpreter in Russian, if her expenses are paid, and if her personal safety and right of return to her home in Chechnya are adequately assured in advance. She relates, and has authorized me to state for her that, during the conversation on June 19, 2014, in Grozny, Charlene the independent investigator stated flatly that the federal public defender's office in Boston knew that Dzhokhar was not guilty as charged, and that their office was under enormous pressure from law enforcement agencies and high levels of the government of the United States not to resist conviction. [Remember what happened to Lynne Stewart, the federally appointed public defender who actually served her client. She was sentenced to prison.]
This affidavit is executed outside of the United States, but the foregoing account is true to the best of my knowledge, information, and belief, and subject to the pains and penalties of perjury under the laws of the United States of America.
Given on this 17th day of April 2015.
/s/ Maret Tsarnaeva

Here is the Argument of Amicus Curiae:

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS
ARGUMENT OF AMICUS CURIAE No. 13-CR-10200-GAO
MAY IT PLEASE THE COURT:
1. Federal jurisdiction: The constitutional authority of the United States cannot be extended to the prosecution of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in light of the opinion of the court in United States v. Lopez, 514 U. S. 549 (1995), and views of Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist, Ns. 17, 22, and 34 [Clinton Rossiter (ed.), Mentor edition by New American Library, New York, 1961, pp. 118, 143-144, and 209]. Congress has broad power to regulate commerce, including trade and the incidents of trade, but domestic crimes and use of weapons are generally reserved to the States. If there is sufficient evidence to prosecute Dzhokhar for murder and mayhem, he should and can be prosecuted exclusively by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Accordingly, amicus urges that the indictment now pending should be dismissed, and the conviction of her nephew Dzhokhar Tsarnaev of charges under several acts of Congress should be vacated.
2. The actual innocence of the accused: Laying aside misgivings of amicus and many others about of the "official" scenario concerning this case, as broadcast to the world by the government and mainstream news media of the United States, evidence generated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), confirmed on the judicial record of this cause, and clarified by the indictment, or suitable for judicial notice under Rule 201(b) of the Federal Rules of Evidence, conclusively proves that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev cannot be guilty of the crimes charged in this prosecution.
The formal indictment against Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was returned on June 27, 2013. The document is 74 pages long, and accuses Mr. Tsarnaev (hereinafter called Dzhokhar) of heinous crimes, including many counts punishable by death. The central event for which Dzhokhar is alleged to have been responsible, according to the indictment, took place, on Boylston Street, in front of the Forum Restaurant, near the finish line of the Boston marathon on April 15, 2013. The most important paragraphs of the indictment are numbered 6, 7, and 24 (including several other paragraphs repeating expressly or by implication the substance thereof). Paragraphs 6-7, read in themselves and in context, state that, acting in concert withhis (now deceased) brother, Dzhokhar set down on the sidewalk and detonated one of two "black backpacks" which contained "improvised explosive devices," these "constructed from pressure cookers, low explosive power, shrapnel, adhesive, and other materials." Paragraph 24 clarifies that the black backpack carried, and containing the pressure-cooker bomb allegedly detonated by Dzhokhar, was placed in front of the Forum Restaurant and was associated with the second explosion. The indictment says in paragraph 6 that both bombs exploded at about 2:49 in the afternoon (Eastern time), and that the bombs Dzhokhar and his brother placed and detonated each killed at least one person, and wounded scores of others.
On the morning after the explosions, i. e., on April 16, 2013, Richard DesLauriers, special agent in charge of the FBI in Boston, made a public statement at a press conference, which is published in printed form on the FBI website and in the news media concerning the facts later set forth in the indictment. Mr. DesLauriers said, as paragraphs 6-7 of the indictment substantially confirm,
". . . this morning, it was determined that both of the explosives were placed in a dark-colored nylon bag or backpack. The bag would have been heavy, because of the components believed to be in it.
". . . we are asking that the public remain alert, and to alert us to the following activity . . . someone who appeared to be carrying an unusually heavy bag yesterday around the time of the blasts and in the vicinity of the blasts."
The FBI also published on April 16, 2013, a crime lab photo of a bomb fragment found after the explosions This photo is reproduced as Tsarnaeva exhibit 1 in the appendix hereof, and is believed proper for judicial notice.
From this bomb fragment, the FBI crime lab was able to reconstruct the size, shape, and type of pressure cookers, as was reported on information published by the FBI to the nation on ABC News Nightline on April 16, 2013. A still-frame, taken from (about 01:39-01:54) of this ABC television report, is reproduced as Tsarnaeva exhibit 2 in the appendix hereof, and is offered for judicial notice. A larger segment of this ABC Nightline News report (at about 01:31-02:14) elaborates facts set forth in paragraphs 6-7 of the indictment, including reference to three of the four exhibits reproduced in the appendix hereof. Each of the pressure cookers in question was a Fagor, 6-quart model, marketed in or near Boston and elsewhere in the United States by Macey's. Its external dimensions are probably about 81⁄2 inches in height, including cover, and about 9 inches in diameter. Stripped of hard plastic handles and filled with nails, bee bees, and other such metal, then prepared as a bomb, it would cause a bag carrying it to be, as observed by the FBI chief in Boston during his press conference on April 16, 2013, "unusually heavy."
Again on April 16, 2013, the FBI published a crime lab photo, here reproduced as Tsarnaeva exhibit 3 in the appendix hereof, and showing a blown- out backpack which is said to have contained one of the bombs, a black nylon bag with a characteristic white rectangle marking about 3 by 11⁄2 inches more or less as it appeared following the explosions the day before. This photo pictures the "dark colored nylon bag or backpack" which Mr. DesLauriers described in his press conference on the day after the explosions when he described what was carried by the guilty parties. It was one of the "black backpacks" referenced in paragraph 7 of the indictment. It is pictured in prosecution exhibit 26 which was introduced on the second day of the trial in this cause (day 28 on the transcript, March 5, 2015), showing that the bag or backpack in question was found on the street near the post box in front of the Forum Restaurant on Boylston Street, and, as previously noted, was associated with the second explosion on April 15, 2013, which, in paragraph 24 of the indictment, Dzhokhar is alleged to have detonated. This general impression is confirmed by defense exhibit 3090, showing a backpack with black exterior or covering, and introduced on the sixteenth day of the trial (day 42 on the transcript, March 31, 2015). Tsarnaeva exhibit 3 is also suitable for judicial notice.
On April 18, 2013, the FBI published a 29-second street video claimed to have been taken from Whiskey's Steak House on Boylston Street at about 02:37- 38 o'clock in the afternoon (Eastern time), only minutes before the explosions on April 15, 2013. It definitively settles the principal question raised by the indictment and the plea of not guilty interposed against it. Part of this video is tucked into prosecution exhibit 22 introduced on the third day of the trial in this cause (day 29 on the transcript, March 9, 2015). From this street video, three still-frame photos have been extracted. Two of these still-frame photos were published by the FBI on April 18, 2013, on posters which were used to identify suspects. All three photos were published by CNN and the Associated Press on April 19, 2013. The third still-frame photo from this video is most telling, and is reproduced as Tsarnaeva exhibit 4 in the appendix hereof. As already noted, the FBI and the indictment have together affirmed that the culprits who detonated these explosions were carrying large, unusually heavy, black backpacks concealing pressure-cooker bombs; but, the third still-frame photo from the Whiskey's Steak House video reproduced as Tsarnaeva exhibit 4, and drawn from a street video already used by the FBI to identify the suspects and acknowledged by the government in this prosecution, shows unmistakably that, shortly before the explosions, Dzhokhar was carrying a small-size, white* backpack over his right shoulder the same light in weight, not heavy laden, and displaying no sagging or bulging as would normally be evident if the bag identified contained a pressure-cooker bomb of the size and weight which the FBI has described.
(*For all practical purposes and to the naked eye, the color is white, although technical computer analysis suggests a very whitish shade of gray.)
Dzhokhar is not guilty of carrying and detonating a pressure-cooker bomb, as charged in the indictment, as is literally as obvious as the difference between black and white. There were and remain other suspects whose identities have been credibly suggested. See, e. g., Toni Cartalucci, Land Destroyer Report, April 19, 2013 (illustrated commentary entitled "Contractors' Stood Near Bomb, Left Before Detonation."). But here it is enough to reflect on the comment of Lord Acton that "historic responsibility has to make up for the want of legal responsibility." J. Rufus Fears, Selected Writings of Lord Acton, Liberty Fund, Indianapolis, 1985, Vol. 2, p. 383 (Letter to Mandell Creighton, April 5, 1887). Whatever is done in judicial proceedings, history will judge this case, as surely as history has judged other significant cases.
3. The grievance of amicus: It is impossible that federal prosecutors and counsel for the accused did not know of the exculpatory evidence which has just been identified and illustrated. Yet federal prosecutors went head without probable cause, as if decisive evidence of actual innocence, impossible to ignore in a diligent study of this case, did not exist, as is wholly unacceptable in light of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U. S. 83 at 86-87 (1963).
Moreover, in her opening statement at trial on March 4, 2015, as reflected in the fourth paragraph of the transcript of her comments, court-appointed counsel for the accused forcefully insisted that Dzhokhar was guilty of capital felonies, as is positively disproved by evidence generated by the FBI, reinforced by the indictment itself. She said,
"The government and the defense will agree about many things that happened during the week of April 15th, 2013. On Marathon Monday, Tamerlan Tsarnaev walked down Boylston Street with a backpack on his back, carrying a pressure cooker bomb, and put it down in front of Marathon Sports near the finish line of the Marathon. Jahar [i. e., Dzhokhar] Tsarnaev walked down Boylston Street with a backpack on his back carrying a pressure cooker bomb and placed it next to a tree in front of the Forum Restaurant. The explosions extinguished three lives."
And in her summation to the jury on April 6, 2015, as the transcript shows, court-appointed counsel for the accused said nothing of the exculpatory evidence in this case. She did not even ask for a verdict of not guilty. She could hardly have done more to promote a conviction and the severest sentence possible, even though the third still-frame photo from the video at Whiskey's Steak House, reproduced as Tsarnaeva exhibit 4, showed Dzhokhar carrying a white backpack, as alone was enough to defeat the indictment insofar as paragraph 7 thereof averred that the accused and his brother committed the principal acts of wrongdoing by carrying and setting down black backpacks. Such misconduct is altogether unacceptable in light of Strickland v. Washington, 446 U. S. 668 at 687- 688 (1984).
The misconduct of which amicus complains served to conceal decisive exculpatory evidence by legerdemain. Amicus urges not only that the death penalty may not be imposed in this case, for all three opinions in Herrera v. Collins, 506 U. S. 390 (1993), allow that the death penalty may not be constitutionally imposed where the accused is demonstrably innocent, but that sua sponte this court order a new trial with directions that new counsel for the accused be appointed, motivated to provide an authentic defense for Dzhokhar.
4. The corpus delicti: Paragraph 10 of the indictment recites a statement in the nature of a confession by Dzhokhar written on the inner walls of a boat in Watertown. But with respect to any and all evidence offered or treated as suggesting an extrajudicial admission of guilt in this case, amicus cites the penetrating observation by Sir William Blackstone in his Commentaries on the Laws of England, Edward Christian, London, 1765, Book IV, p. 357: "[E]ven in cases of felony at common law, [confessions] are the weakest and most suspicious of all testimony, ever liable to be obtained by artifice, false hopes, promises of favour, or menaces, seldom remembered accurately, or reported with due precision, and incapable in their nature of being disproved by other negative evidence." Amicus and countless others suspect that the alleged confession in the boat was staged as artifice to suit the government's case, and not authentic. But she stands on ancient wisdom which casts doubt on all extrajudicial confessions without adequate safeguards, including the rule that an extrajudicial confession is insufficient to convict, unless the corpus delicti be sufficiently proved up. The rule is defined with various degrees of rigor from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In federal courts, in any event, the corroboration required to sustain a confession or statement in the nature of a confession need only be independent, substantial, and reveal the words in question to be reasonably trustworthy, as appears, e. g., in Opper v. United States, 348 U. S. 84 (1954).
If such be the law here applicable, the required corroboration in this case must include evidence showing that Dzhokhar actually carried a large, heavy, black backpack on Boylston Street before the explosions on the afternoon on April 15, 2013, as claimed by the FBI and alleged in the indictment. Tsarnaeva exhibit 4, a product of investigation by the FBI, shows plainly that Dzhokhar did no such thing, hence no required corroboration has been established
5. Closing remarks: The views here expressed are not unique, but shared by good Americans, and others the world over. The undersigned and her sister Malkan are prepared to testify as expressed in the affidavit filed in support of the motion for leave to file a submission as amicus curiae. This argument is
Respectfully submitted,
May 15, 2015 /s/ Maret Tsarnaeva
Zhigulevskaya Str. 7, Apt. 4
364000 Grozny, Chechen Republic, RF Telephone: 011-7-938-899-1671
E-mail: marettsar@gmail.com 10
Of counsel:
John Remington Graham of the Minnesota Bar (#3664X) 180 Haut de la Paroisse
St-Agapit, Quebec G0S 1Z0 Canada
Telephone: 418-888-5049
E-mail: jrgraham@novicomfusion.com
CERTIFICATE OF COMPLIANCE
The undersigned certifies that this submission is consistent with the rules of this Court, that it is prepared in 14-point Times New Roman font, and that the bare text thereof consists of 2,331 words.
May 15, 2015 /s/ Maret Tsarnaeva

APPENDIX TSARNAEVA EXHIBIT 1

APPENDIX TSARNAEVA EXHIBIT 2

APPENDIX TSARNAEVA EXHIBIT 3

APPENDIX TSARNAEVA EXHIBIT 4

This is the communication I received from attorney John Remington Graham:

TO DR. PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS, GREETING :
Dear Sir, By way of introduction. I have practiced criminal law for nearly forty-eight years, both prosecuting and defending, and served as a founding professor in an accredited law school in my native Minnesota. I have appeared as counsel before courts of record in sixteen jurisdictions, and have a background in forensic science and medicine. I can provide a résumé on request.
On March 25, 2015, while the trial was underway, I wrote and distributed a short opinion on the prosecution of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, accused of capital felonies in Boston on April 15, 2013 in United States v. Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, No. 13-CR-10200-GAO on the docket of the United States District Court for Massachusetts, commonly known as the "Boston marathon case", or "the Boston bomber case". I used eight photo exhibits to explain my conclusions that, as a matter of law, there was no probable cause to support the indictment, and that Mr. Tsanaev was plainly not guilty as charged. These views were shared by others reporting on the internet, but my opinion was meant to provide professional assurance to fellow citizens that, legally speaking, something was radically wrong with the prosecution. In fact there were then and still are a great many anomalies with the case.
The substance of the Boston marathon case, as I then saw it, and as I still see it, is that, on the day after the explosions on Boylston Street in Boston, the FBI crime lab determined from fragments at the crime scene, the FBI chief in Boston announced, and the indictment itself later confirmed that, shortly before the explosions, the culprits were carrying large, heavy-laden, black backpacks containing pressure cooker bombs. Two days later, the FBI chief in Boston stated publicly that the suspects were identified by a certain street surveillance video, which for some days was later displayed for public viewing on the FBI website. The video had been taken from Whiskey's Steak House, and was used to create still-frame photos of Tamerlan Tsarnaev (the big brother, now deceased), and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (the little brother, later accused) as they walked up Boylson Street toward the finish line of the Boston marathon, shortly before the bombs went off. These two still frames were featured on posters distributed by the FBI in soliciting cooperation from the general public. But there is a third still-frame photo, taken from the same video, which shows unmistakably that Dzhokhar was carrying a small, light-weight, white backpack. The backpack carried by Dzhokhar was flat, and did not sag or bulge as would have been apparent if it contained a pressure cooker bomb filled with shrapnel as described in the indictment. This third still-frame photo was published by the major news media of the United States. I retrieved my first copy of this third still-frame photo from an internet report of CNN on April 19, 2015.
The bottom line is that the FBI's own evidence eliminates Dzhokhar as a suspect, and conclusively proves he is not guilty as charged. This reality is literally as clear as the difference between black and white. The establishment press knew about it, and I cannot imagine how the federal prosecutors and counsel for the accused could not have known about it. So obvious was the actual innocence of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that there was no need for a trial at all, because a good criminal defense lawyer could have taken the FBI information published the day after the explosions, the text of the indictment, and the third still-frame photo from the street surveillance video used by the FBI to identify suspects, and employed those items to support a pre-trial motion for dismissal of the indictment. I have on many occasions made such motions or seen such motions made by colleagues in federal courts, based on facts revealed by disclosures which prosecutors must and routinely do make available to counsel for the accused under a famous decision of the United States Supreme Court. And I have seen such motions granted on not a few occasions. Such practice is not uncommon, as I know from my own experience.
What was going on in Dzhokhar's case? Why was there no motion to dismiss the indictment based on indisputable facts? Why was there a trial at all? Why did Judy Clarke, a big-time death-penalty lawyer appointed to defend Dzhokhar, admit to the jury in her opening statement that her client was guilty? She had decisive evidence that her client was not guilty. Why did she not use it, bring the case to an end, and thereby save her client's life? In her final summation to the jury, Mme Clarke did not even ask for a verdict of not guilty. She made no mention of the exculpatory evidence generated by the FBI and mentioned in the indictment. Available were widely published photographs of possible paramilitary agents near the crime scene in Boston about the time of the explosions, carrying large, heavy-laden, black backpacks with characteristic markings which the FBI crime lab material revealed. But these persons with black backpacks were never investigated by the FBI. Why not?
I contacted Maret Tsarnaeva, the paternal aunt of Dzhokhar living in Chechnya which is part of the Russian Federation, a lawyer trained in the old Russian school of law in the Kyrgyz Republic which was once part of the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, but has been independent since the conclusion of the former Cold War. A very bright and interesting woman Maret turned out to be, and, from the beginning, she maintained that her nephew was not guilty. My conversations with her over Skype led me to conclude that Judy Clarke and her colleagues in the federal public defender's office in Boston could not stand up to the political pressure and thus threw the case instead of defending Dzhokhar.
Mme Tsarnaeva executed an affidavit on April 17, 2015, which explains events when representatives of the federal public defender's office in Boston met with Dzhokhar's family in Russia. For those interested in details, I attach a copy of her affidavit exactly as sent to me by Maret from Russia and later filed with the federal district court in Boston, except that the affidavit filed in the federal district court includes Maret's original signature in Russian script which I can verify with my business records.
Maret hoped to call exculpatory evidence to the attention of the presiding judge, because Dzhokhar's lawyers were not defending the accused and federal prosecutors were acting without probable cause. After diligent research on options was made, Maret decided to attempt an appearance before the federal district court in Boston as a friend of the court. She had to apply to the presiding judge for permission to appear in this capacity, and to make a motion asking the court to appointment me as her personal counsel for this purpose on special occasion. Normally, to be admitted to practice before the court on special occasion, I would need a motion from a member of the local bar. My paralegal assistant and I contacted many lawyers in Massachusetts. Some were sympathetic, but none dared to participate, lest their reputations be harmed. I had practiced before the federal district court in Boston some years previously, and then had no difficulty in securing the routine courtesy of a member of the local bar in sponsoring my appearance on special occasion. But not even the American Civil Liberties Union in Massachusetts dared to assist Maret or myself. I had to assist Maret in making an intervention pro se, representing herself, while she listed me as "of counsel" so as to signal that she was guided by a lawyer, and asked the presiding judge to admit me on special occasion without sponsoring motion of a member of the local bar, due to unusual circumstances. On instructions of court personnel, we could not proceed on the electronic record, and Maret's pro se motion with supporting documents was served upon the federal district attorney and the federal public defender in paper and by registered mail, and the papers had to be filed with the office of the clerk of the federal district court, again in paper and regular postal service. But our task was accomplished by May 29, 2015.
For your convenience, I attach herewith the formal argument made by Maret Tsarnaeva acting pro se with my guidance, exactly as filed in the federal district court in Boston, except that the copy served and filed included the signature of Maret Tsarnaeva in Russian script, as I can demonstrate from my business records. We showed by text and exhibits, and by reference to the trial record and FBI-generated evidence that Dzhokhar cannot be guilty, because the FBI determined and the indictment alleged that the culprits carried black backpacks, but the FBI's evidence showed that Dzhokhar was carrying a white backpack.
Maret expressed her grievances against the unethical misconduct of the federal prosecutors in proceeding when they knew they had no probable cause, and the unethical misconduct of court-appointed counsel in not defending in earnest. We enclosed the four most critical photo exhibits, including the results of the FBI crime lab investigation and the exculpatory third still-frame photo from the video used by the FBI to identify the culprits.
I am aware that many incredulous citizens cannot accept that the government of the United States would stage a show trial in Boston to convict an innocent young man and sentence him to death. But such events are not unusual in history. Judicial murder spoils the history of many nations. These incredulous citizens point to Dzhokhar's alleged confession statements inside the boat in Watertown and at the time of sentencing. But contrary to the beliefs of the uninitiated, it has been clear from ancient times that confession statements are the weakest and most suspicious of all testimony, as is stated by legal scholars going back many centuries. Maret's pro se argument cited Sir William Blackstone, from whom the founding fathers of the United States learned the law, for this truth. False confessions are very common, and result from fabrication, artifice, duress, unfounded hopes, attempts to curry favor, even brainwashing. Hence, going back centuries the law has struggled to develop safeguards against false confessions.
The intervention by Maret Tsarnaeva in behalf of her nephew in the Boston marathon case is significant because, although denying her motion to appear as a friend of the court, the presiding judge entered an order, which appears on the electronic record, is numbered 1469, and directs that her filings be maintained by the office of the clerk of the federal district court in Boston. These documents should be accessible to those wishing to see and read them. Therefore, it is a matter of public record, not merely a matter of internet protest or gossip, that the federal prosecutors, the court-appointed lawyers for the accused, and the presiding judge are all aware of the FBI's own evidence which excludes Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a suspect, and proves his actual innocence. It is also clear that the major news media of the United States, which orchestrated a false appearance that Dzhokhar was guilty of heinous crimes, and called for his execution, were aware that he was not guilty. They knew, as the report of CNN four days after marathon Monday makes plain, that Dzhokhar was in fact carrying a small, light-weight, white backpack, and that the government's own evidence shows that the culprits, whoever they were, carried large, heavy-laden, black backpacks.
John Remington Graham of the Minnesota Bar (#3664X)

John Remington Graham is an attorney with decades of experience in the fields of constitutional, environmental, and criminal litigation. He served as a federal public defender; special counsel to Brainerd, Minnesota; and Crow Wing County attorney. He has a great many publishing credits in constitutional law and history, and also forensic medicine and science. He has lectured on constitutional law and legal history in the United States and Canada. Graham was also cofounding professor of law at Hamline University in Minnesota. As a young lawyer, he quickly realized an investigation into constitutional history was necessary to properly defend his clients against the judicial machine. Since then, Graham has been a diligent student of American, Canadian, and English constitutional history and law. He recognized that the American Constitution could not be understood without a thorough knowledge of its foundation in English Constitutional law and history. He has participated in major cases raising difficult questions of constitutional law, appearing before courts in sixteen jurisdictions within the United States. Additionally, in 1998 he was the advisor on British constitutional law and history for the amicus curiae for Quebec in the Canadian Supreme Court, a position that afforded him the opportunity of shaping Quebec's argument in its case for peaceable secession. Graham received both a bachelor of arts in philosophy and a law degree from the University of Minnesota. Graham, his wife, and children have lived in Minnesota and Quebec.

[URL="http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2015/08/17/fbi-evidence-proves-innocence-accused-boston-marathon-bomber-dzhokhar-tsarnaev/"]Website


[/URL]

[Drew Phipps]

Sometimes defense attorneys have to choose between defenses. For instance, in Texas, to get the defense of "self defense," you must actually admit or concede the actual assault. You cannot say, "I didn't do it, but if I did, it was self defense."

I can see how the court appointed defense lawyer, rather than attempting a risky (in the sense that if you lose, the client will certainly die) factual defense to the case in cheif, tried to save his life by offering a mitigation defense (which still may or may not work, but might add enough appellate cannon fodder to prolong his life; and if it does work, allow him to live long enough to eventually prove his innocence).

Such would not be an inappropriate response to her duty as his counsel, except under one circumstance: when, after consultation, the client instructs you to choose the riskier defense.

[David Guyatt]

It's an interesting fact that those private military contractors from Craft International present at the Boston bombing, and which no one in officialdom dared - or would - speak about or disclose who hired them or what there purpose was, were out of work less than a year later when Craft's founder, Chris Kyle was murdered by troubled vet, Eddie Ray Routh. With Kyle's death Craft International folded and now no one will ever know who hired them or what their purpose was on the day of the marathon bombing.

I took a look at the career of Routh and noted that the VA who treated him diagnosed him as suffering from PTSD. This weas an incorrect diagnosis. Routh was psychotic. His private medical records which his family later turned over for the trial.

The following is extracted from an article about his mental health from TheTraceOrg:

Over the next year, through 2012, Routh's symptoms grew worse. He was convinced the government was spying on him. He reported having auditory hallucinations, like hearing music that seemed like it was "picked up [from] a radio station."

Auditory hallucinations. Mmmm.

[Lauren Johnson]

It's an interesting fact that those private military contractors from Craft International present at the Boston bombing, and which no one in officialdom dared - or would - speak about or disclose who hired them or what there purpose was, were out of work less than a year later when Craft's founder, Chris Kyle was murdered by troubled vet, Eddie Ray Routh. With Kyle's death Craft International folded and now no one will ever know who hired them or what their purpose was on the day of the marathon bombing.

I took a look at the career of Routh and noted that the VA who treated him diagnosed him as suffering from PTSD. This weas an incorrect diagnosis. Routh was psychotic. His private medical records which his family later turned over for the trial.

The following is extracted from an article about his mental health from TheTraceOrg:

Over the next year, through 2012, Routh's symptoms grew worse. He was convinced the government was spying on him. He reported having auditory hallucinations, like hearing music that seemed like it was "picked up [from] a radio station."

Auditory hallucinations. Mmmm.

::face.palm::

[Michael Barwell]

It's an interesting fact that those private military contractors from Craft International present at the Boston bombing, and which no one in officialdom dared - or would - speak about or disclose who hired them or what there purpose was, were out of work less than a year later when Craft's founder, Chris Kyle was murdered by troubled vet, Eddie Ray Routh. With Kyle's death Craft International folded and now no one will ever know who hired them or what their purpose was on the day of the marathon bombing.

I took a look at the career of Routh and noted that the VA who treated him diagnosed him as suffering from PTSD. This weas an incorrect diagnosis. Routh was psychotic. His private medical records which his family later turned over for the trial.

The following is extracted from an article about his mental health from TheTraceOrg:

Over the next year, through 2012, Routh's symptoms grew worse. He was convinced the government was spying on him. He reported having auditory hallucinations, like hearing music that seemed like it was "picked up [from] a radio station."

Auditory hallucinations. Mmmm.

Mmmm? - David, you seem to be implying that because this fella was 'hearing' things/stuff, that is a) hallucinations, & b) that it's towards a diagnosis of psychosis. You know about the brain-brain- & brain-machine/computer-interfaces & that sound can be projected into the actual 'mind', as well as into the hearing system with microwave signals, don't you? And that what I call 'dream choreographies' are well within science?
It's outside of my physics O-level, but I liken it to the extremes of the useable signal strength of 'Voyager' probe, how ridiculously weak that was, maybe still is; I'm pretty sure brainwaves via 'remote' or internal EEG are in & of themselves, no scientific 'biggie' - just supposeing, I mean taking a longshot, that the shitehounds really, honestly, truely, arn't "malevolent gods" und "zuperdoppler'eros", eh? [click-click-light neuralgic -&-a-pain-to-my-neck there]

This thing about ppl being 'painted' as psychological basket-cases is an interesting one, very 'Soviet'. I read an article (somewhere), where a shrink, womans name, wanted a new set of diagnostics/ a new disciplinary branch of psyche medicine, for ppl who were being subjected to 'radiological' influencing, towards being 'turned' to the wibble factory. I'm pretty skeptical about stuff - it could've been a big fake, but it (the article & it's notes) seemed pukka to me.

I've had loads of auditories, the last (apart from what I assume to be microwave auditory effects, but I class these as different, 'cos they're obviously coming thru' the hearing system, rather than being inside my mind, as per obtuse 'notions'/'cognitive whispers' or that stupid "You're being followed" in ... duh, the 'Mind' shop in N-u-T) genuine vocalised mind-drop-in was c.11-'13, that ridiculous 'teenage' psychotic arsehole lad, blabbed "Powerrr!" as I looked at a pic of the Gloster E.28/39, where I noted the 'P' in a circle (for 'prototype'). I mean, I just had to laugh, the malevolent gods bit looks like thin gruel when some fuckhead's ref'ing like that. So reactance sets-in, & they drop that (at least overt) influencing technique, 'cos they've taken more-or-less exactly what they like to think of as "Powerr!" - tha ability to remotely sound-etc project, & pissed it up the wall. What I do find curious, as with the "You're/I'm being followed" vocalisation; it shows what a bunch of pathetic & ridiculous shitheads have access to this tech [click-click there, left ear, unusually].

[R.K. Locke]

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/natio.../83026086/


Boston Marathon bombing survivor killed in car crash

In one of the most heart-wrenching images of the Boston Marathon bombing aftermath, Victoria McGrath, clings to a firefighter as he carries her away from the site of the bombing.

McGrath, who was 20 at the time, was standing near the finish line when a bomb exploded just feet from her.

While recovering in the hospital, McGrath, thanked the firefighter, Jim Plourde, who carried her to safety, and the other first responders who saved her life. In March, McGrath was killed in a car accident while traveling in Dubai, according to a Northeastern University spokesman.

Plourde told the Boston Herald he was "devastated" by McGrath's death.

"After the Boston Marathon bombing, Victoria became a major part of my life as well as my family's," Plourde told the Herald. "It's been said that I helped to save her life, but the truth is Victoria saved my life after the marathon as her love, support and friendship helped myself and my family deal with the acts of 4/15/13."

[David Guyatt]

By Peter Dale Scott:

JUNE 26, 2016 | PETER DALE SCOTT

CLASSIC WHOWHATWHY: WAS TAMERLAN TSARNAEV A DOUBLE AGENT RECRUITED BY THE FBI?

FBI Director Robert Mueller discussing the Boston Marathon bombing. Photo credit: White House / Wikimedia
Introduction by WhoWhatWhy
Omar Mateen had been on the FBI's radar for some time before he opened fire at a nightclub in Florida, killing 49 and wounding 53 people. Now the public is asking why the FBI didn't do something to prevent the tragedy.
Glenn Greenwald responded with an article in The Washington Post, "The FBI Was Right Not to Arrest Omar Mateen Before the Shooting". He warned that pressure on the FBI to be more pro-active will inevitably lead to more draconian anti-terror legislation and the loss of even more civil liberties in the name of preventing the unpreventable.
But there is a legitimate reason to question the FBI. There are times when the Bureau seems to be playing dangerous games with dangerous people, as shown in the article below.
This was first published in June of 2013. At the time, we said there were aspects of the Boston Marathon bombing where the official story just doesn't add up. But what if these inconsistencies point to something amiss on a far deeper level? What if the FBI's initial claim that it didn't know who the Tsarnaev brothers were when in fact it knew about them for several years hides an even bigger embarrassment?
Update. Last month, WhoWhatWhy's James Henry reported that, despite public denials, the FBI secretly flagged Tamerlan as a terrorist threat in his immigration records. And the Bureau admitted that it conducted a six-month-long "assessment" of Tsarnaev, two years before the bombing. But then the FBI said it closed the investigation after it "found no link or nexus' to terrorism".
Contradicting that statement, both the FBI and CIA had actually put Tsarnaev's name on the terrorist "watch list," stating that he "may be armed and dangerous" and that screening him is "mandatory" if he attempts to board an airplane.
So why didn't they do so?
Photo credit: Federal Bureau of Investigation

Was Tamerlan Tsarnaev a Double Agent Recruited by the FBI?

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Amid the swirl of mysteries surrounding the alleged Boston bombers, one fact, barely touched upon in the mainstream US media, stands out: There is a strong possibility that Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers, was a double agent, perhaps recruited by the FBI.
If Tsarnaev was a double agent, he would be just one of thousands of young people coerced by the FBI, as the price for settling a minor legal problem, into a dangerous career as an informant.
That he was so coerced is the easiest explanation for two seemingly incompatible incidents in his life:
The first is that he returned to Russia in 2012, ostensibly to renew his Russian passport so he could file an application for US citizenship.
The second is that Tsarnaev then jeopardized his citizenship application with conspicuous, provocative almost theatrical behavior that seemed more caricaturethan characteristic of a Muslim extremist.

False Notes

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While walking around in flashy western clothes in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, he visited his cousin, Magomed Kartashov, a prominent Islamist leader, already on the Russians' radar. The two reportedly spent hours discussing Tsarnaev's wish to join a terrorist cell there in the Caucasus. Later, Russian authorities asked Kartashov if he had tried to incite Tsarnaev with "extremist" views. Kartashov said it was the other way around: he had tried to convince Tsarnaev that "violent methods are not right."
Experts agree that Tsarnaev could not have expected such provocative activity to escape the notice of the vigilant Russian authorities.

The first Russian request came in March 2011 through the F.B.I.'s office in the United States Embassy in Moscow. The one-page request said Mr. Tsarnaev "had changed drastically since 2010" and was preparing to travel to a part of Russia "to join unspecified underground groups."

Back in America, Tsarnaev again called attention to himself as a radical Muslim. Just one month after he returned from his trip, a YouTube page that appeared to belong to him featured multiple jihadist videos that he had purportedly endorsed.
And in January 2013, he got himself thrown out of a mosque in Cambridge for shouting at a speaker who compared the Prophet Mohammed to Martin Luther King Jr. Tsarnaev rarely attended this mosque, but he must have known it was moderate. (He had done something similar the previous November at the same mosque.) Typically, jihadists are trained to blend in, to be as inconspicuous as possible. Did Tsarnaev go to this mosque with the express intent of smoking out possible radicals?
The key to Tsarnaev's puzzling behavior may lie in the answer to another question: when exactly did Tsarnaev first come to the attention of the FBI? The timeline offered by the agency, and duly reported in the mainstream media, has been inconsistent. One story line focused on the FBI's response to an alert from Russian authorities.
Eric Schmitt and Michael S. Schmidt of the New York Times, wrote, on April 24, 2013,
The first Russian request came in March 2011 through the F.B.I.'s office in the United States Embassy in Moscow. The one-page request said Mr. Tsarnaev "had changed drastically since 2010" and was preparing to travel to a part of Russia "to join unspecified underground groups."
The Russian request was reportedly based on intercepted phone calls between Tsarnaev's mother and an unidentified person (The Guardian [London], April 21, 2013). According to another source, several calls were intercepted, including one between Tsarnaev and his mother.
So was it the Russian alert in March 2011 that first prompted the FBI to investigate Tsarnaev? This conclusion seems undermined by another report in the Times written four days earlier by the same two reporters plus a third that dated the agency's first contact with Tamerlan and family members at least two months earlier, in January2011.
If the FBI interviewed Tsarnaev before the Russians asked them to, then what prompted the agency's interest in him? Were his contacts here as well as in Russia considered useful to American counterintelligence?

The Canadian Connection

.

Although it's not known why the Russians were intercepting phone calls involving the Tsarnaevs, one reason might have been Tamerlan's connection, direct or indirect, with a Canadian terrorist named William Plotnikov. According to USA Today, a Russian security official told the AP that 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 United States and Canada who like him had once lived in Russia, Novaya Gazeta reported. The newspaper said Tsarnaev's name was on that list, bringing him for the first time to the attention of Russia's secret services.
Russian Federal Security Service
Photo credit: RIA Novosti / Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 3.0)

According to a slightly different version, Plotnikov, "while under interrogation in the militant hotbed of Dagestan, named Tsarnaev as a fellow extremist."
The similar backgrounds of Plotnikov and Tsarnaev make it likely that they had indeed been in contact. Both were recent immigrants from the former Soviet Union. Both had successful boxing careers in North America, and both surprised their friends by converting to Islamist extremism.
Plotnikov was a member of the Caucasus Emirate, an al-Qaeda ally, and the Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been searching for him since 2010. By 2011 the United States had joined the Russians in targeting this terrorist group as an al-Qaeda ally, and had offered $5 million for information leading to the capture of the group's leader Dokka Umarov. (Moscow Times, May 27, 2011)
Plotnikov was killed in July 2012 in a shootout between militants and police in Dagestan. Tsarnaev left Dagestan for America two days after Plotnikov was killed.

US and Russia Share Concerns

.

Tsarnaev's hopes for a Russian passport would have been put at risk by his openly provocative behavior in Dagestan unless he was acting as an informant. But for which government, the US or Russia?
The United States and Russia have two shared concerns in the "arc of crisis" stretching from Afghanistan to the Caucasus terrorism and drugs. The two problems are interrelated, because drugs, especially in the Caucasus, help finance terror operations. This vitally affects Russia, both because it has one of the highest heroin death rates in the world, and even more because some of its member republics, like Dagestan, are up to 80 percent Muslim. This shared concern has led to a successful joint US-Russia anti-drug operation in Afghanistan.
Was Tamerlan Tsarnaev caught up in a similar counter-intelligence operation?

The FBI's Dysfunctional Informant Program

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One of the more controversial features of the FBI's informant program is the frequency with which FBI agents coerce young people into the dangerous role of informant, as a price for settling a minor legal problem. Tsarnaev fits the mold. His successful career as a boxer was interrupted and his application for US citizenship was held up (and perhaps denied) because "a 2009 domestic violence complaint was standing in his way." This alone would mark him as a candidate for recruitment.
Thousands of vulnerable young people avoid our overcrowded prisons by agreeing to become snitches, sometimes wearing a wire. In this way a person whose only crime may have been selling marijuana to a friend can end up risking his career and even his life. And for what?
According to Sarah Stillman in The New Yorker,
The snitch-based system has proved notoriously unreliable, fuelling wrongful convictions. In 2000, more than twenty innocent African-American men in Hearne, Texas, were arrested on cocaine charges, based on the false accusations of an informant seeking to escape a burglary charge. This incident, and a number of others like it, prompted calls for national legislation to regulate informant use.
After 9/11, the coercive techniques of the FBI drug war, along with half of the agents using them, were redirected to surveillance of Muslims. The emphasis was no longer on investigation of specific crimes, but the recruitment of spies to report on all Muslim communities.
In 2005 the FBI's Office of the Inspector General found that a high percentage of cases involving informants contained violations of the FBI's own guidelines. Its report noted that since 2001 the rules had been loosened to reflect the new emphasis on intelligence gathering and. by extension, the bureau's urgent need for informants.
According to the Center on National Security at Fordham Law School, … nearly every major post-9/11 terrorism-related prosecution has involved a sting operation, at the center of which is a government informant. In these cases, the informantswho work for money or are seeking leniency on criminal charges of their own have crossed the line from merely observing potential criminal behavior to encouraging and assisting people to participate in plots that are largely scripted by the FBI itself. Under the FBI's guiding hand, the informants provide the weapons, suggest the targets and even initiate the inflammatory political rhetoric that later elevates the charges to the level of terrorism.
A writer for Mother Jones, Trevor Aaronson, also investigated the FBI's informant-led terrorism cases for over a year; he too found that in a number of cases, "the government provides the plot, the means, and the opportunity."

Refuse the FBI and See What Happens

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And what happens to Muslims who refuse to become spies? The case of Ahmadullah Niazi is not atypical. Niazi was one of several members of a California mosque who sought a restraining court order against another member actually an FBI informant who was flagrantly advocating violence in their midst. When Niazi was subsequently asked to become an informant himself and refused, he was arrested on charges of lying to immigration officials about alleged family connections to a member of Al Qaeda. The charges were ultimately withdrawn, but by then both Niazi and his wife had lost their jobs.
Another Muslim, Khalifa al-Akili, when pressured to become an informant, complained to the Guardian newspaper in London that "he believed he was the target of an FBI entrapment' sting." One day after the Guardian contacted al-Akili, the FBI arrested him on a felony charge for illegal gun possession, based on the fact that two years earlier he had used a friend's rifle (at a firing range), something he was prohibited from doing since he already had a drug conviction on his record. Al-Akili was held without bail as a potential threat to the public, and ultimately convicted.
These recruitments were taking place in a climate of fear. In addition to the tens of thousands of Muslims in America who were interviewed or investigated after 9/11, there were also by 2003 (according to an American imam's compilation of US Government figures), 6,483 detained or arrested, 3,208 deported, 13,434 in process of deportation, and 144,513 interviewed and then registered under a Special Registration program of the Justice Department.
It is instructive to study how the FBI handled drone victim Anwar al-Awlaki. Right after 9/11, Awlaki was the "go-to" imam for the US media, because of his willingness to denounce the atrocity as anti-Islamic. But a few years earlier, while a Muslim cleric in San Diego, he had been twice arrested and convicted for soliciting prostitutes. According to Awlaki, he had been set up both times, because the US government had been trying to recruit him as a spy:
In 1996 while waiting at a traffic light in my minivan a middle aged woman knocked on the window of the passenger seat. By the time I rolled down the window and before even myself or the woman uttering a word I was surrounded by police officers who had me come out of my vehicle only to be handcuffed. I was accused of soliciting a prostitute and then released. They made it a point to make me know in no uncertain terms that the woman was an undercover cop. I didn't know what to make of the incident. However a few days later came the answer. I was visited by two men who introduced themselves as officials with the US government … and that they are interested in my cooperation with them. When I asked what cooperation did they expect, they responded by saying that they are interested in having me liaise with them concerning the Muslim community of San Diego. I was greatly irritated by such an offer and made it clear to them that they should never expect such cooperation from myself. I never heard back from them again until in 1998 when I was approached by a woman, this time from my window and again I was surrounded by police officers who this time said I had to go to court. This time I was told that this is a sting operation and you would not be able to get out of it.
Awlaki's allegations may have been at least partly true. In 2002, when he came under suspicion in Operation Green Quest, an investigation of Muslim nonprofit organizations, the FBI reportedly did try to flip him, using prostitution charges.
According to U.S. News,
FBI agents hoped al-Awlaki might cooperate with the 9/11 probe if they could nab him on similar charges in Virginia. FBI sources say agents observed the imam allegedly taking Washington-area prostitutes into Virginia and contemplated using a federal statute usually reserved for nabbing pimps who transport prostitutes across state lines.
Were the FBI's recruitment efforts successful? Another Muslim "person of interest," Ali al-Timimi, tells a strange tale about al-Awlaki's unnaturally provocative behavior:
When Awlaki came to his home, Timimi said, he started talking about recruiting Western jihadists. "Ali had never, in his whole life, even talked to the guy or met him," Timimi's [CHK SPELLING] lawyer, Edward MacMahon, told me. "Awlaki just showed up at his house and asked him if he could assist him in finding young men to join the jihad." MacMahon said that Timimi was suspicious of Awlaki showing up "completely out of the blue" (Jeremy Scahill, Dirty Wars, 71).
Timimi's attorneys argued that Awlaki was wearing a wire at the time, and asked that the US Government produce the tapes, which would show Timimi's rejection of Awlaki's terrorist request. The Government refused, on the grounds that "We are aware of no authority for this request." Timimi, a promising research scientist, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.
Another glaring indication that Awlaki had been flipped is the ease with which he was able to return to the US from studies in Yemen in 2002, even though there was an outstanding warrant for his arrest.
On October 9, 2002, the U.S. Attorney's office in Colorado "abruptly filed a motion to have the warrant for Awlaki's arrest vacated and dismissed."
On October 10, Awlaki and his family arrived at JFK airport on a flight from Saudi Arabia. After a brief period of confusion, Customs officials released them and recorded later that the FBI had told them "the warrant had been removed on 10/9." In fact, documents show the warrant was still active, and was only vacated later that day.
Asked to comment on these anomalies, former FBI agents indicated there were only two likely explanations: either the bureau let the cleric into the country to track him for intelligence, or the bureau wanted to work with him as a friendly contact.
Does a similar analysis apply to the FBI's curious "relationship" with Tamerlan Tsarnaev?
Despite Tsarnaev's inflammatory behavior, as reported by the Russians and also in this country, a senior law enforcement official told The New York Times that intelligence agencies never followed up on Tsarnaev once he returned to the US, because their investigation "did not turn up anything and it did not have the legal authority to keep tabs on him"
This claim sounds strange in the light of recent revelations about widespread surveillance of telephone and Internet traffic of ordinary Americans and the ease with which law enforcement officials obtain warrants to probe more deeply into the activities of anyone suspected of ties to "terrorists."
The case of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, like that of Anwar al-Awlaki, leaves many unanswered questions. But one thing seems clear: the FBI's informant program, especially when dealing with the War on Terror, has proliferated wildly out of control.

WhoWhatWhy

[Peter Lemkin]

Vladimir Putin said Russian officials were told not to interfere in the US's domestic affairs after multiple attempts to warn about Tamerlan Tsarnaev's growing radicalization.
The Russian president's remarks about the lead-up to the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing were made during a recent address to the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia.
Putin's claim, however, directly refutes the official US stance, which maintains that the FBI repeatedly asked the Russians for more substantive information on Tsarnaev so it could investigate deeper. The Bureau claims its hands were tied because Russia wouldn't provide more information.
The FBI maintains it first became aware of Tsarnaev from a March 2011 memo sent by Russia's Federal Security Service (known by the Russian acronym FSB). There is, however, evidence Tsarnaev was on the bureau's investigatory radar before Russia's warning.
But, getting back to Russia's March 2011 memo it stated that Tsarnaev had "changed radically," and that he was "a follower of radical Islam." The FSB also claimed to have knowledge that Tsarnaev intended to travel to Russia's Caucasus region to join underground militant groups.
Vladimir Putin at the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi, Russia.
Photo credit: President of Russia (CC BY 4.0)

The FBI conducted a six month "assessment" of Tsarnaev which it claims found no link or "nexus" to terrorism. But it was not much of an investigation considering the claims made by Russia.
Inexplicably, the FBI never even asked Tsarnaev about any travel plans even though that was central to the warning provided by the Russians.
Why the FBI needed more information than that to thoroughly investigate the young Russian immigrant living in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has never been satisfactorily explained. The small amount of information the Russians withheld from their initial warning later became public in court documents. It really wasn't any more substantivethan the relatively specific warning they had initially provided.
"[W]e send our American partners information and often get no response at all. Some time ago, we sent information on the Tsarnaev brothers. We sent the first document, got no response, sent a second document, and got the response that this is not your business, they are US citizens now and we will take care of things ourselves'," Putintold French television journalists in an early October interview. "The result was a terrorist attack in the USA. Is this not an example of how we end up with losses if we neglect cooperation in this very sensitive area?"
Putin's words could be written off as political grandstanding, especially in the growing climate of rancor between Russia and the US. However, the deteriorating relations may also be Putin's motivation for exposing an unsavory truth about US investigators' handling of Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Would the US's national security operatives knowingly allow a potential terrorist to roam free without keeping him on an extremely tight leash?

Stating the Obvious

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The FBI's apparent "hands off" approach to Tsarnaev left a lot of people scratching their heads, including Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA). In a letter to FBI Director James Comey, Grassley asked, among other probing questions, whether Tsarnaev had been recruited to be an informant: "Did the FBI attempt to use the tactic of recruitment' or a sting operation with Tamerlan Tsarnaev? If not, why not?"
Iowa Senator Chuck Grassley
Photo credit: Gage Skidmore / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Grassley was referring to a widely known fact: the FBI and other clandestine agencies routinely recruit foreign nationals from strategically important regions, particularly Muslims. Tsarnaev was an ethnic Chechen Muslim and native Russian speaker. (Please see our story, Classic Who: Was Tamerlan Tsarnaev a Double Agent Recruited by the FBI?)
The unsettling nature of the investigation was also noted in an April 2014 report by the Inspector General of the Intelligence Community (IG IC), which examined "intelligence failures" leading up to the bombing. A close reading of this report only compounds the confusion about why Tsarnaev was twice waived through JFK International in 2012 when he flew to Russia for six months, despite warnings about a potential for violence on multiple watch lists.
In addition, as WhoWhatWhy has documented, there is evidence that the FBI was indeed playing a dangerous game with Tsarnaev, classifying him as a "known or suspected terrorist," likely all the way up until the moment of his death, while still allowing him to roam free (see here, here and here).
In an uncharacteristically candid phrase about US-Russia relations, The New York Timesoffered this analysis a year after the bombing about why the FBI handled Tsarnaev the way they did: "At the time [of the FBI's investigation], American law enforcement officials believed that Mr. Tsarnaev posed a far greater threat to Russia."
For the FBI (or other federal agency) to admit they knew he was a dangerous radical "but dangerous to Russian interests only, we thought" would be a PR nightmare of epic proportions.
The Times article was only stating the obvious. The US has an established track record of using radical jihadis to undermine Russia's interests. The CIA supported the Afghan Mujahedin to fight the Russian army after its invasion of Afghanistan is one example. Many analysts consider Al Qaeda to be a direct offshoot of the US's support for extremists to fight a proxy war.
It is this kind of "blowback" that US officials could be trying to distance themselves from with Tsarnaev.

http://whowhatwhy.org/2016/11/03/putin-r...-tsarnaev/

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