Wounded Boston suspect answering questions in writing

The only surviving suspect in the Boston marathon bombings investigation is reportedly answering authorities' questions in writing, but police may never be able to interview him verbally as he may be too injured to speak.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers suspected in the Boston Marathon bombings, called his mother Thursday morning, hours before being killed in a shootout with police, and told her he had received a call from the FBI, she said.

My daughter Bella called me and said, 'Mama, turn on the television' ... Now I live with the television turned on at all times 

"He would call me every day from America in the last days," Zubeidat Tsarnaev said on Sunday in a telephone interview from her home in the Russian republic of Dagestan, "and during our last conversation on the morning (before the shootout), he was especially touching and tender and alarmed at the same time," she said. "He said he got a private phone call from [the FBI] and said that they told him he was under suspicion and should come see them.

Culprits: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19.

Culprits: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19. Photo: AP

"'If you need me, you will find me,' he said, and hung up," she said, beginning to sob. "You know the FBI followed him for several years and when he got back from Dagestan last year they called him and asked him what was the purpose of his visit to his homeland."

Mike Rogers, a Republican congressman from Michigan, is a former FBI agent. He said on Sunday that the FBI had done "a very thorough job" of vetting Tamerlan Tsarnaev after the Russian intelligence service flagged him in early 2011 as a possible Islamic radical. Rogers said he didn't think the bureau had missed anything significant.

In her remarks, the suspects' mother focused primarily on her older son, but also mentioned the younger brother, Dzhokhar, who was badly wounded in the shootout and was captured by police later on Friday, hiding in a boat in suburban Watertown. He remains in hospital and in police custody.

"He wanted to be among his people, among his relatives, close to his roots": Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.

"When [Tamerlan] talked to me that last time, Dzhokhar was in his house too, and he said he would give him a lift home," their mother said. "And then the next day my daughter Bella called me and said, 'Mama, turn on the television' ... Now I live with the television turned on at all times," she said, crying again.

Zubeidat Tsarnaev said she and her husband are planning to go to the US to clear their sons' names. She said her husband's brother "is a lawyer with a big oil company and he said that he will help us find a good lawyer for Dzhokhar".

She said that in recent months, Tamerlan had told her on the phone several times that while he loved and enjoyed America, he wanted to move back to Dagestan and had persuaded his wife, who is American, to move back with him and their daughter.

"He wanted to be among his people, among his relatives, close to his roots," she said, sobbing.

The Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens from the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. In 1992 they moved to their historic homeland of Chechnya, a restive region of southern Russia, but in 1994 the first war between Moscow and the regional separatists broke out. The Tsarnaevs moved back to Kyrgyzstan and from there in 1999 to neighbouring Dagestan. In 2002 they immigrated to the US. The parents returned to Dagestan a year ago while their sons and two daughters remained in the US.

An Islamic militant group in Dagestan issued a statement on Sunday distancing itself from the marathon bombing.

"The Caucasian mujahideen are not fighting against the United States of America," the group, called the Caucasus Emirate, said in its statement. "We are at war with Russia, which is not only responsible for the occupation of the Caucasus, but also for heinous crimes against Muslims."

Experts and rights activists in Moscow agreed that taking the war of terror across the ocean to the US doesn't help the cause of Russian radical Islamists, despite their routine anti-American rhetoric.

"I think we can trust this statement, because attacking the US is not in the interests of North Caucasus insurgents," Tatiana Kasatkina, executive director of Memorial, a Moscow-based human rights group that monitors events in the troubled region. "The United States doesn't support Russia in this regional conflict and more than that, it regularly criticises the Russian leadership for violations of human rights in the course of this conflict."

Los Angeles Times