Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s friend, killed in Orlando following questioning about the Boston bombing, expressed fear to a fellow Chechnyan pal in Florida.
The Tsarnaev friend killed in Orlando had been one of several acquaintances of Tamerlan (the elder brother killed in a standoff at MIT) living in the area. The Chechnyan men knew one another through the MMA community.
Khasuen Taramov was taken in for questioning along with Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s friend killed in Orlando, identifying the young man as Ibragim Todashev, 27.
Taramov says that he and Todashev (who had lived in Boston and made Tsarnaev’s acquaintance) had been followed by the FBI after the bombings.
According to Taramov, Tsarnaev’s friend killed in Orlando “wasn’t like real close friends (with Tsarnaev), but he just happened to know him.”
Taramov said, “… he had no idea that they were up to something like that, like bombings and everything, you know what I mean?”
After Tsarnaev’s friend was killed in Orlando, Taramov explained that he and Todashev had been taken in for hours of questioning by the FBI Tuesday night, adding somewhat eerily that his friend “felt inside he was going to get shot” that evening.
Taramov said:
“(The FBI) took me and my friend [Todashev], the suspect that got killed … They were talking to us, both of us, right? … and they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back.”
Before the bombing, Todashev had planned a trip back to Chechnya, for which he was scheduled to leave this week — and the 27-year-old opted not to go due to the intensity of FBI interest in himself and Taramov.
Taramov said after Todashev was killed :
“He cancelled the tickets because, the FBI had been like, I don’t know, they’ve been pushing him, you know what I’m saying … They’ve been pushing him they say ‘don’t leave, don’t leave’ so he decided to stay. But we had a feeling, worst case scenario something like that was going to happen.”
After Tsarnaev’s friend was killed in Orlando, the FBI said that an agent shot in self-defense and that further details were forthcoming.
