Friend Of Boston Bombing Suspect Shot And Killed By FBI Agent

Dead men can't talk. A friend of Tamerlan Tsarnov said he had nothing to do with the bombing, and he wanted to return to Chechnya after the FBI started questioning him. Now he's dead at the hands of an FBI agent. That's the news we're hearing out of Orlando, Florida this morning from local Fox affiliate, WOFL:

A man who was shot dead by an FBI agent late Tuesday night in Orlando knew one of the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, a man identified as friend of the victim said Wednesday.

The agent encountered the man while conducting official duties, agent Dave Couvertier said in a statement.

A man at the scene on Peregrine Avenue near Kirkman and Vineland roads who identified himself as a friend of the victim said the man knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older brother suspected in the April 15 bombings that killed three and injured more than 260.

Khusen Taramov said he and his friend had no connection with the Boston bombings, but the FBI had been questioning them since then.

"He used to talk on the phone with him [Tsarnaev]," Taramov said of his friend. "They talked last time a month ago. After the bombing, I couldn't believe it," he said.

"The FBI kept asking, 'What's the connection?' But there is no connection... no connection."

Taramov said the victim had planned to return to Chechnya but had canceled his tickets.

"Me and him and my friends, we knew this was going to happen. That's why he wanted to leave the country," Taramov said. "But he canceled the tickets. The FBI's been pushing him, 'Don't leave, don't leave.' So he decided to stay," he said.

Taramov said the FBI had questioned him earlier Tuesday, but he was allowed to leave. When he returned, he said he found out his friend had been shot dead, he said.

"The FBI knows what happened," Taramov said.

There's a lot more to this story, folks. If you aren't in fear of what's happening in our government at the federal level, you should be.

UPDATE: The dead Russian friend of Tsarnaev has been identified as 27-year old Ibragim Todashev. A manufactured story of the circumstances of his death will be a work in progress in the coming hours and days. He had no gun, but we're now being told he suddenly became violent during a cooperative interview with the FBI agent and lunged at him with a knife. What, the police don't pat a suspect down first before interrogating him? The state-run media is now reporting that Todashev confessed to a role in a previously unsolved triple homicide allegedly involving the Tsarnaev brothers before he was shot and killed by the interrogating FBI agent. In other words, he wasn't giving the interrogator the answers he wanted to hear. NBC Pete Williams offers the latest government propaganda:

A man with ties to the Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot and killed after attacking an FBI agent during questioning in Florida, law enforcement officials said on Wednesday.


The man who was shot, Ibragim Todashev, 27, allegedly attacked an agent with a knife. He was not suspected of having played any role in the bombing that killed three people and injured scores more in April, but he did confess to being involved in a brutal Boston-area slaying two years ago, investigators said.

Law enforcement officials said Todashev was being questioned as part of the FBI’s effort to find and talk to anyone who had any contact with Tsarnaev, the older bombing suspect killed in a shootout with police. 

“The agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual,” the statement said.

“During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries,” according to the statement.

Todashev, they say, had spent some time in the Boston area, where he was a mixed martial arts fighter, and knew Tsarnaev there. Investigators say he confessed to the agent in Florida that he played a role in a triple murder in 2011 in which three men were discovered slain in an apartment in Waltham, Mass.

Their throats had been cut, and their bodies were covered with marijuana. No suspects had been arrested in that case.

Officials say FBI agents were questioning Todashev on Tuesday. He was cooperative at first, they say, but later that night, he attacked the agent with a knife, who shot and killed him. Officials say Todashev became violent as he was about to sign a written statement based on his confession.

The officials say Todashev had some connections with radical Chechen rebels, but they say it's not clear whether he had any role in radicalizing Tsarnaev.

UPDATE (5/23/13): Check out this story discussing the fact that Todashev had tendon repair surgery only days before the bombing. I know someone who had that surgery recently. He was hobbling around for several months.

Ibragim “couldn’t take part” in the Boston Marathon bombings as he was undergoing a surgical operation on his tendons in Florida days before the bombings and “had to learn how to walk again,” the father said.

I'm betting there is no autopsy report that will note that little fact. He must have posed a real threat to the FBI agent while hobbling around and wielding a knife.