Boston Bombing: FBI Questions Former Chechen Rebel in US
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FBI(MANCHESTER, N.H.) — The FBI has carried out a search warrant at the Manchester, N.H., home of a former Chechen militant who admits he met with dead bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev less than a month before the Boston Marathon bombing.
Musa Khadjimuradov, 35, told Voice of America that agents took his computer hard drive, and samples of his DNA and fingerprints.
Granted asylum to live in the United States in 2004, Khadjimuradov explained the FBI has said he was not a suspect in the case. He has denied any involvement in the bombing, but told VOA, “I believe that they thinking that he come here to New Hampshire and I try to help him or do something, like that.” The FBI declined to comment on the search.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his younger brother Dzhokhar, 19, are accused of setting off a pair of bombs near the finish line of the Boston Marathon April 15, killing three and injuring over 260 others. Tamerlan was killed in a shootout with police days later, while Dzhokhar was injured and later taken into custody.
Wounded and hiding in a boat in Watertown, Mass., just before he was captured, the younger brother wrote phrases including “F*** America” and “Praise Allah” on a panel of the boat, police in Massachusetts told ABC News Thursday.
In an interview posted on the VOA website, Khadjimuradov said he had repeated contact with the elder Tsarnaev over several years. Khadjimuradov said he had met Tamerlan in 2006 at the annual gathering of the Chechen Society of Boston.
Khadjimuradov told VOA he was first interviewed by the FBI April 29, but it wasn’t until Tuesday that federal agents showed up with a warrant to search his home. ABC News has been unable to reach Khadjimuradov for comment on this report.
Though officials said Dzhokhar told investigators he and his brother plotted the attack alone and learned how to make the bombs online, federal officials have investigated a trip Tamerlan took to Dagestan in 2012, where he allegedly met with suspected militants.
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