US authorities to interview Boston bombing suspects' parents in Russia Published April 24, 2013
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- The parents of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Anzor Tsarnaev and Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, will be interviewed by U.S. authorities regarding the Boston Marathon bombing on April 15 that killed three people and injured nearly 200 others. (AP)
U.S. authorities were on their way to a mountainous region in southern Russia to interview the parents of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects, as more details emerged about the brothers' recent activities in the U.S., including word of where the deadly explosives may have been purchased and that the family relied on welfare for at least some of their time here.
A U.S. Embassy official said the Americans traveled from Moscow to the predominantly Muslim province of Dagestan "because the investigation is ongoing, it's not over."
The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said Wednesday that the team is working with the Russian security services, the FSB.
The mother of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev is being interviewed Wednesday in the FSB building in Makhachkala, the capital of Dagestan. The official said one positive development from the Boston tragedy might be closer cooperation with the Russian government on security issues.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, who was arrested in the United States in June on charges of shoplifting, has told The Associated Press that her son Tamerlan greatly enjoyed his time with her relatives during a trip to his ancestral homeland in southern Russia last year. But Tsarnaeva said he never traveled to her native village in a mountainous region of Dagestan, which is a hotbed of an ultraconservative strain of Islam known as Wahabbism. Wahabbism was introduced to the Caucasus in the 1990s by preachers and teachers from Saudi Arabia.
Meanwhile, new information surfaced Wednesday about the older of the two brothers, as the manager of a New Hampshire fireworks store said 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was seen buying two mortar kits at the store in February.
April Walton, of Phantom Fireworks, says Tamerlan bought two "Lock and Load" reloadable mortar kits with 24 shells each.
Company Vice President William Weimer says FBI agents visited the Seabrook store on Friday, interviewed staff and checked its computers.
He says the amount of gunpowder that could be harvested from the kits would not have been enough to detonate the Boston bombs.
Walton says Tsarnaev paid $200 cash but scanned his driver's license into the company's computer system as required by store policy. Walton says the employee who handled the sale described it as a routine transaction.
Faisal Shahzad, who has pleaded guilty for his attempted Times Square bombing on May 1, 2010, also purchased fireworks used to build his failed car bomb from the same company. Shahzad bought consumer-grade fireworks from Phantom Fireworks' showroom in Matamoras, Pa.
"We were just shocked," Weimer told the New York Daily News from the company's store in Seabrook, N.H. "After our Times Square experience, we said, 'It can't happen twice.'"
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was also living on taxpayer-funded state welfare benefits while he was "delving deep" into the world of radical anti-American Islamism, the Boston Herald reports.
State officials confirmed to the newspaper late Tuesday that Tsarnaev, who was killed during a gun battle with police on Friday, was receiving benefits along with his wife, Katherine Russell Tsarnaev, and their 3-year-old daughter.
The state’s Executive Office of Health and Human Services said those benefits ended in 2012 when the couple stopped meeting income eligibility limits. Russell Tsarnaev’s attorney has claimed Katherine — who had converted to Islam — was working up to 80 hours a week as a home health aide while Tsarnaev stayed at home, the newspaper reports.
“The brothers were not receiving transitional assistance benefits at the time of the incident and have not received any transitional assistance benefits this year," Massachusetts Health and Human Services communication director Alec Loftus told the newspaper in a statement. "The Tsarnaevs’ parents are former recipients of transitional assistance benefits, and both Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev received benefits through their parents when they were younger. Separately, Tamerlan and his family received benefits until 2012, when the family became ineligible based on their income.”
Meanwhile, the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev has reportedly not been claimed by either his parents or his 24-year-old widow.
ABC News reported Tuesday that medical examiners had completed their autopsy and the body is ready to be claimed for burial, but so far no one has done so.
Lawyers for Russell Tsarnaev have said she "is doing everything she can to assist with the investigation," and is mourning the victims of the bombings.
The area near the Boston Marathon finish line also reopened to the general public early Wednesday. Traffic was allowed to flow all the way down Boylston Street for the first time since two explosions on April 15 killed three spectators and hospitalized 260 others.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.Click for more from the Boston Herald.Read more:
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