The father of a Chechen friend of the Boston marathon bomber shot dead by the FBI during a questioning last week has accused U.S. agents of “executing” his son.
Abdul-Baki Todashev told a press conference in Moscow that his son, Ibragim Todashev, was “100-per cent unarmed”, but an FBI agent shot him six times in the torso and one time in the head in what looked like a “kill shot” gangsters do in movies.
Ibragim (24) was being questioned in his Orlando apartment on 22 May about his relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two brothers suspected of setting off bombs at the Boston Marathon last month.
Mr. Todashev showed photographs of his son’s body with a gunshot wound in the back of the head. The photos were taken in a morgue by a friend to whom the FBI had handed the body.
“I want justice and I want an investigation to be carried out, I want these people to be put on trial in accordance with U.S. law. They are not FBI officers, they are bandits,” said Mr. Todashev, a father of 12 who works for the government in Chechnya.
The New York Times quoted a senior U.S. law enforcement official on Thursday as saying Ibragim Todashev had attacked the FBI agent with what “might have been a broomstick”.
Questions
Mr. Todashev’s lawyer, Zaurbek Sadakhanov of the Moscow Bar Association, who has also worked with the Tsarnaev brothers’ parents, said he had questions to the FBI:
“Why was he questioned for a third time without a lawyer? Why wasn’t Ibragim’s questioning recorded on audio or videotape, seeing as he was being questioned without a lawyer? What was the need to shoot Ibragim seven times, when five fully equipped police officers with stun guns were against him?”
