MMA Fighter Linked to Boston Bombing Shot by FBI (UPDATE #3)

Ibragim Todashev

It looks like Federal agents are whittling away at more suspects linked to the Boston Marathon bombing.
From Raw Story:

Report: FBI shoots and kills man in Florida connected to Marathon bombing suspect

Federal agents shot and killed a man linked to one of the suspects in the April 15 Boston Marathon bombing attack after “something went wrong” during questioning, CBS News reported Wednesday morning.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation visited the man, identified by CBS and an Orlando news outlet as 26-year-old Chechnyan national Ibragim Todashev, early Wednesday morning. WKMG-TV reported that Todashev was being observed by the Bureau because of a past association with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing case who was killed in a firefight with police on April 19.

CBS News senior correspondent John Miller reported that “something went wrong” while Todashev was being interviewed by agents. The Associated Press reported on Twitter that he became violent during questioning.

In a statement released to Miller, the FBI confirmed that there was a shooting involving an agent who “encountered the suspect while conducting official duties” in Orlando, but offered no further details.

“Back when [Todashev] used to live in Boston, they used to hang out. Not hang out — he knew him,” a friend of Todashev’s, Khusen Taramov, told WKMG. “They met a few times, because [Todashev] was a MMA fighter and [Tsarnaev] was a boxer. They just knew each other. That’s it.”

Miller reported that Todashev and other residents of his apartment complex were questioned by authorities, but that Todashev was under more observation because he visited Tsarnaev in Boston and at one point planned to travel to Chechnya.

“He had a ticket to New York. From there, he was going to go home,” Taramov said to WKMG, adding that the Bureau was “pushing him to stay, saying, ‘We want to interview one last time.’”

Tsarnaev’s brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, is in federal custody after being arrested in Watertown, Massachusetts, on April 20.
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Now it seems that this guy and his friend had already been interrogated and clearly were being surveilled- This from USA Today:
(excerpt)

“The FBI agent was taken to a hos­pi­tal with non-life-threatening injuries.

The vic­tim, an eth­nic Chechen, was an acquain­tance of bomb­ing sus­pect Tamer­lan Tsar­naev, accord­ing to a friend, Khusn Taramiv, who spoke to WESH-TV.

Taramiv said his friend knew Tsar­naev because they were both inter­ested in mar­tial arts.”

*
“Tamariv told WESH-TV that he and the vic­tim were ques­tioned for about three hours by the FBI on Tues­day and that agents then wanted to inter­view Toda­shev alone.

“They told me they’re going to bring him back,” Taramiv said. “They never brought him back. He felt inside he was going to get shot.”

He also said FBI agents had been fol­low­ing him and Toda­shev for sev­eral days.

Toda­shev was arrested by Orlando police on May 4 on charges of aggra­vated bat­tery in con­nec­tion with a fight in a park­ing lot.“
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“He felt inside he was going to get shot”

Hmmm.

Ok, I am certainly no stranger to dealing with police and even a Federal agent in one case myself.
First of all, these agents never work or interrogate alone. Even if Todashev was being questioned alone, some other agent would have been near by, if not in the room also. They probably would have had tape rolling, and a written record of the questions and answers.
This shit doesn’t just happen because a 20-something kid starts getting angry at the line of questioning.

It would take a hell of a lot for an FBI agent to draw on a potential suspect who may have valuable information.

Unless this was some kind of “mop-up” operation.

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Posted May 23, 2013 @ 12:40 PM
MATT CONNOLLY: FBI report on death of Ibragim Todashev

Read more: MATT CONNOLLY: FBI report on death of Ibragim Todashev – Quincy, MA – The Patriot Ledger http://www.patriotledger.com/crime/x83398290/MATT-CONNOLLY-FBI-report-on-death-of-Ibragim-Todashev#ixzz2UKPeWpgt

At 5 p.m. Wednes­day, Charles Bright, spe­cial agent in charge of the FBI’s Orlando office, made the fol­low­ing statement:“We regret to announce the death of Ibragim Toda­shev who died ear­lier today as a result of being shot three times by FBI Spe­cial Agent Rick O’Shea. The cir­cum­stances of this unfor­tu­nate inci­dent are as follows.

Since the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the Tsar­naev broth­ers as the ter­ror­ists in the Marathon Ter­ror­ist Attack the FBI has been ques­tion­ing peo­ple asso­ci­ated with Tamer­lan Tsar­naev. One of these per­sons was Ibragim Toda­shev who was known to be an asso­ciate of Tamer­lan and lived with him in Boston. Since April 19, 2013, he has been ques­tioned by the FBI seven times con­cern­ing his involve­ment in that attack. There has been no evi­dence con­nect­ing him with the attack.

On Tues­day, May 21, 2013, two Mass­a­chu­setts State Troop­ers, John Lucky and Paul Strong, arrived in Orlando along with FBI Spe­cial Agent Rick O’Shea. They were inter­ested in inter­view­ing him about the homi­cides of three men killed in Waltham Mass­a­chu­setts, in 2011. They, by pre­arrange­ment with Mr. Toda­shev, met with him at his apart­ment in the Orlando hous­ing com­plex where Mr. Toda­shev lived with his girl­friend, Anna Muschkovick. Accom­pa­ny­ing those men were two FBI agents from the Orlando office, Nemo Puitovic and Bar­ley Straight as well as two detec­tives from the Orlando police depart­ment, Gray Red­din­ton and Gary Tiami.

They arrived at the loca­tion of Mr. Toda­shev at 10:00 p.m. The men and Mr. Toda­shev engaged in a con­ver­sa­tion con­cern­ing his where­abouts when he was in Boston at the time of the Waltham homi­cides along with other ques­tions about his rela­tion­ship with Tamer­lan Tsar­naev. Dur­ing that dis­cus­sion Mr. Toda­shev excused him­self to go to the bath­room. Agent O’Shea fol­lowed him there and the other law enforce­ment offi­cials remained in the liv­ing room.

The bath­room was accessed through the main bed­room. Agent O’Shea said as soon as Mr. Toda­shev reached the bath­room, he turned around and attacked Agent O’Shea. Agent O’Shea was aware of Mr. Todashev’s back­ground in mar­tial arts and the attack was pow­er­ful and unex­pected knock­ing Agent O’Shea onto the bed. There Agent O’Shea felt Mr. Toda­shev reach­ing for his FBI issued weapon and strug­gle occurred over its con­trol. Dur­ing that time, Agent O’Shea man­aged to keep con­trol of the weapon and fired six shots into Mr. Todashev.

The com­mo­tion caused by this strug­gle caused the other law enforce­ment offi­cers to respond but the inci­dent had ended by that time. This inci­dent occurred at approx­i­mately 11:45 p.m. an hour and 45 min­utes after the inter­view with Mr. Toda­shev began.”

SAC Bright then answered the ques­tions from the news media that had gath­ered there.

Of course the above is fic­tion. That is what should have hap­pened. How Mr. Toda­shev met his untimely demise has to be a rel­a­tively straight for­ward event. Instead of the above we have a team of FBI experts descend­ing on Orlando from DC. Every­one accepts this a nat­ural. Every­thing has to be washed and scrubbed before the peo­ple are allowed to know any­thing about it. The sol­diers have to be lined up in a row.

What will hap­pen next is we will then get the state­ment from the FBI which will be to this effect:

“Ibragim Toda­shev was shot some time in the evening of Tues­day May 21, 2013, by an FBI Agent from Boston who was inter­view­ing him along with two Mass­a­chu­setts state police offi­cers and other law enforce­ment offi­cials. Dur­ing that inter­view Ibragim Toda­shev attacked the FBI agent putting his life in jeop­ardy and act­ing in self-defense Toda­shev was killed. The inves­ti­ga­tion to date shows that the FBI agent acted prop­erly and in accor­dance with all the rules of the FBI gov­ern­ing self-defense. This mat­ter is under inves­ti­ga­tion and there will be no fur­ther infor­ma­tion until the inves­ti­ga­tion is com­pleted. But let us assure you the FBI acted in a proper and respon­si­ble man­ner at all times.”

Then, of course, we’ll hear from unnamed offi­cials with inside infor­ma­tion other things that relate to the inci­dent. There will be a knife in some sto­ries, in oth­ers it will be a club, and in oth­ers a lamp. We’ll be told about a con­fes­sion to mur­ders and per­haps some sug­ges­tion he was involved in the Marathon Ter­ror­ist Attack.

I hope I’m wrong but I expect the last thing we’ll hear is what really hap­pened because if we were going to know that it would have already come out. It’s a sim­ple sit­u­a­tion with a half-dozen law enforce­ment wit­nesses. Why the delay? Why the silence?

Matt Con­nolly is a for­mer long-time deputy dis­trict attor­ney in Nor­folk County under William Delahunt. He lives on Cape Cod. Read his blog, The Trial of Whitey Bul­ger. Check out our sto­ries about Bulger

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Seven Freakin’ agents/troopers were there…

CORRECTION:
Part of the above written by Connolly is satire. I did not catch this at first, my bad
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UPDATE 2:
Todashev’s room mate took pictures of the body and the family claims he was shot 6 times in the torso and once in the back of the head.
There appears to be a major cover-up going on.

My guess is that Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been recruited by the FBI or another agency and was being protected re: the Waltham knife murders. Todashev may not have been involved but knew that Tamerlan had been recruited. Tamerlan double-crossed the FBI when he did the Boston Marathon bombing and Todashev had to be killed to keep that from being revealed.
See my previous post about Tamerlan being trained by a Spook NGO in Russian Georgia.
Just a theory…
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UPDATE 3

Every past news source I have read or seen, including “Meet The Press” has said that the Russians “Went silent” about Tamerlan Tsarnaev after the initial warnings to the FBI and the CIA about Tamerlan.
Now we see that Rep. William Keating returned from Russia with this startling information about Todashev:

Keating: Russia shared Todashev info
Sunday, June 2, 2013 PrintEmail Comments (31) .By:Erin Smith

Link to Boston Herald

Russian intelligence officials sent the U.S. government information on the Chechen pal of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev — just after the marathon attack and a month before he was shot dead while being questioned by authorities about his ties to the bombings.

Todashev was one of many Russian nationals named in the April 21 letter to U.S. officials, said Keating.
.Keating said the missive was not a warning letter about Todashev, but he told the Herald his name came up during intelligence information sharing.

“It was just clear that his name was referenced among others in that letter. It could have been in response to the FBI asking them what they knew,” Keating said, adding it was unclear why Russia shared the information. “We’ll be able to get these letters.”

Keating said he spent more than an hour with Russia’s counterterrorism director and a top deputy at FSB, Russia’s equivalent of the FBI, who both candidly shared information on Tsarnaev, his association with militants and his visit to Russia last year.

“I never thought we’d get that level of information and cooperation from the Russians,” Keating said.

Keating acknowledged he learned “more specific” information from the Russians than FBI officials, who have failed to show up for congressional hearings on the bombings and have not provided briefings about Todashev.

The head of Russia’s counterterror efforts said he believed the Boston Marathon attacks could have been prevented if the two countries had been working more cooperatively before the bombings, said Keating.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev first appeared on Russian authorities’ radar in 2011 after slain Canadian jihadist William Plotnikov named him as a fellow extremist under interrogation — news first reported by the Herald on May 3.

Keating said Russian officials claim Tsarnaev unsuccessfully sought to join militants in Russia, Palestine and the Middle East and attempted to slightly alter his name. Tsarnaev traveled to Chechnya and Dagestan in January 2012 — nine months after the Russian warning — but Russian officials had no idea he was there because he traveled on a visa from Kyrgyzstan, where he was born, according to Keating.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed April 19 in a firefight with police in Watertown. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, was later captured and is now charged in the April 15 attacks at the Boston Marathon finish line that killed 3 people and wounded more than 260.
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So now we know that one month before Todashev was shot, Russian Intelligence had passed his name on to “their counterparts in the United States”
That refutes the cover story that the FBI had no further information from Russian Intel. From NBC’s “Meet The Press”:

“REP. MIKE ROGERS (R-MI, Chairman, Intelligence Committee, Former FBI Agent): Yeah, well, it’s important to understand why, in fact, the FBI interviewed him in the first place. So they had information from a foreign intelligence service that they were concerned about his possible radicalization. And so they went from there, the FBI did their due diligence, and did a very thorough job about trying to run that to ground and then asks some more help from that intelligence service to try to get further clarification and, unfortunately, that intelligence service stopped cooperating. So what happens is that case gets closed down. ”

That statement from Mike Rogers appeared on the same date as the Russian Intelligence report naming Todashev. Undoubtadly there were others about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

Here’s what crime reporter Matt Connolly (cited above) says in his recent blog post about Todashev:

“I’ve suggested the FBI should have told us about Todashev’s killing which happened in front of at least six police officers within hours of its happening. What is there to investigate? You’ve got all the police witnesses who can tell you what they saw, you’ve got a dead man with seven bullet holes in him, you have the gun or guns that fired those bullets. Tell us what happened – or what the police witnesses said had happened. You don’t need to send cover-up teams out of Washington,DC to tell us this story.”
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Unless this is a “mop-up operation”…

Tags: Boston Marathon Bombing, crime reporter Matt Connolly, FBI, FBI shoots MMA fighter, MMA fighters, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Todashev, U.S. Rep. William Keating

This entry was posted on May 22, 2013 at 3:40 pm and is filed under News and Views, Tell the truth and run !. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.