Skip to footer

FBI agent: Tsarnaev spoke of martyrdom and bomb-making with friends

During testimony in the case against Tsarnaev friend Azamat Tazhayakov, FBI agent Timothy Quinn said Tazhayakov related this from a conversation between the two UMass-Dartmouth students last year.

|
FBI/AP/File
This 2013 file photo provided by the Federal Bureau of Investigation shows Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
  • By Daniel Lovering Reuters

| Boston

Accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told his friends about martyrdom and bomb-building over lunch before the attacks last year, an FBI agent testified on Friday in the trial of one of the friends for obstruction.

Azamat Tazhayakov is the first of Tsarnaev's friends to face trial. He is charged with removing evidence from Tsarnaev's room at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth and throwing away a backpack containing fireworks casings as the FBI searched for the suspect, who is accused of killing three people and injuring 264 in the April 2013 bombings.

FBI Special Agent Timothy Quinn said Tazhayakov told him that Tsarnaev had discussed martyrdom and his knowledge of bomb building during a conversation over lunch with Tazhayakov and his roommate and fellow Kazakh exchange student Dias Kadyrbayev before spring break last year.

"Dzhokhar had explained that people who die in an act of martyrdom die with a smile on their face and go straight to heaven," said Quinn, who interviewed Tazhayakov in the days after the alleged visit to Tsarnaev's room.

"He also explained that during the same conversation, Dzhokhar said he knew how to build bombs" because he had taken chemistry classes, Quinn testified.

Tsarnaev was captured in the days after the bombing and is awaiting trial, but his older brother Tamerlan, also a suspect in the bombing, was killed following a shoot-out with police.

On Thursday, another FBI agent, Farbod Azad, testified that Tazhayakov told him he and Kadyrbayev, and a third man, Robel Phillipos of Cambridge, Massachusetts, had removed the backpack and a laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room.

Azad questioned Tazhayakov after the three were ordered out of their New Bedford, Massachusetts, apartment by heavily armed agents. Tazhayakov's attorneys have argued their client's statements during that interview should not be admitted at trial because he had not believed he was free to go at the time.

Tazhayakov could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted of obstruction of justice and conspiracy. Kadyrbayev faces the same charges. Phillipos is accused of the lesser charge of lying to investigators.

None of the three friends are charged with playing a role in the bombing.

Trials for Kadyrbayev and Phillipos are scheduled for later this year.

Tsarnaev is awaiting trial, set for November, on charges that carry the death penalty if he is convicted.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to FBI agent: Tsarnaev spoke of martyrdom and bomb-making with friends
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Latest-News-Wires/2014/0711/FBI-agent-Tsarnaev-spoke-of-martyrdom-and-bomb-making-with-friends
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe