The father of purported friend of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, Ibragim Todashev , says his unarmed son was shot in the back of the head by FBI “bandits,” and calls for an investigation into the man’s death in FBI custody.
Ibragim Todashev, 27, was taken into custody in Florida along with another alleged friend of Tsarnaev when he, FBI agents say, became aggressive and was ultimately killed in subsequent gunfire.
According to agents, Todashev was in the process of drafting a written admission to involvement in an earlier triple murder in Boston — one that was re-investigated when Tamerlan Tsarnaev was linked with the Boston Marathon bombing.
Ibragim Todashev knew Tsarnaev through the MMA community while he lived in Boston — but the young man’s father Abdul-Baki Todashev now says his son was killed “ execution style ” during questioning.
At a press conference in Moscow this week, the elder Todashev alleged that FBI “bandits” shot his unarmed son several times, and at least once in the back of the head.
Todashev also says that Ibragim had recently undergone leg surgery and suggested the young man would have been unable to physically threaten an agent to the point of necessary deadly force.
Citing a changing FBI account of Ibragim Todashev’s death in FBI custody, his father said during the press conference:
“They could have simply grabbed my son or, in the worst case, they could have wounded him … They simply killed him as they wanted and my opinion is that they wanted to get rid of him to shut him up.”
A post on The Atlantic casually outlines the discrepancies in the account of the events leading up to the death of Ibragim Todashev, asking:
“What really confounds me about this account is the part where Todashev allegedly ran at the agent ‘with a metal pole’ that ‘might have been a broomstick.’ If he was running with a large object in his hands when killed, how is there any doubt about what the object is?”
The post continues:
“Anyone could just look at the dead guy and see what was in his hands, right? Or examine the stuff in the evidence locker. Pole or broomstick? This source doesn’t know. It’s also quite a feat to be shot, struck, knocked backward, and charge again toward a gun, especially for a guy who, according to his friends, was in recovery from leg surgery.”
It concludes:
“And, of course, it’s odd that this latest story is so different from the previous ones that have leaked out. A knife, a samurai sword, a metal pole, and a broomstick don’t seem like objects that would be confused for one another.”
The FBI has launched an investigation into the death of Ibragim Todashev during the interrogation.
