Mike Ruppert on Todashev killing

FBI contradicted: Chechen killed over knife attack 'was unarmed'

RT talks with Mike Ruppert

Kill shot? Man linked to Tsarnaev took FBI bullet to top of head

Ibragim Todashev, who was killed by the FBI during a questioning, was shot six times, once in the crown of his head, photos shown at a press conference in Moscow reveal. His father suspects it could have been a kill shot.

RT,

30 May, 2013

“I can show you the photos taken after the killing of my son. I have 16 photographs. I just would like to say that looking at these photos is like being in a movie. I only saw things like that in movies: shooting a person, and then the kill shot. Six shots in the body, one of them in the head,” Abdulbaki Todashev said at the press conference at RIA Novosti news agency in the Russian capital.

He explained that the photos were taken by friends of his son in the US, to whom the FBI handed the body.

“I want justice and I want an investigation to be carried out, I want these people [the FBI agents] to be put on trial in accordance with US law. They are not FBI officers, they are bandits. I cannot call them otherwise, they must be put on trial,” he said.

From left: lawyer Zaurbek Sadakhanov of the Moscow Interterritorial Bar Association, Abdulbaki Todashev, the father of Ibragim Todashev, and human rights activist Kheda Saratova, head of the Objective independent information and analysis agency, at the RIA press conference on May 30, 2013. (RIA Novosti / Alexander Natruskin)

Ibragim had been questioned twice by the FBI in connection with the Boston bombings, but not about the murder in which he was allegedly suspected, his father said.

The 2011 triple murder in Massachusetts, in which the Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was also implicated, was reportedly the subject of the third and final FBI interrogation of Ibragim Todashev.

His friend Khusen Taramov told the father that Ibragim had refused to come in for questioning on May 22, and instead asked the FBI agents to come and question him at home.

“Should something happen to me, call my parents,” Taramov quoted the last thing he heard from his friend.

On the day of Ibragim’s death, Taramov was questioned by the FBI separately on the street, and was refused entry back into his friend’s house, Todashev’s father claimed. He was “sent off” to wait in a nearby café on the grounds that Todashev was still being questioned and that “the interrogation would take a long time.” 

After some eight hours passed since the start of interrogation and his Todashev’s phone still was not answering, Taramov returned, only to find the street cordoned off with police cars and an ambulance.

“They tortured a man for eight hours with no attorney, no witnesses, nobody. We can only guess what was going on there, until there is an official investigation,” Abdulbaki Todashev said.

Lawyer Zaurbek Sadakhanov shows a photo of Ibragim Todashev’s body, with what appears to be a bullet wound in the crown of the head, at the RIA press conference on May 30, 2013. (RIA Novosti / Alexander Natruskin)

Referring to the Boston bombings, Todashev said his son believed it was a “set-up.” But Ibragim never sympathized with radical or terrorist ideas, and was not a follower of a radical Islam, he added.

Also, Ibragim was never a close friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev – he and 
Tamerlan only “went boxing at the same gym” and “exchanged phone numbers,” the father said.

So far, Todashev has received “no official explanation” of his son’s death from the US side. He said he was only told there is an ongoing investigation “inside the FBI.”

Todashev called the earlier claims that Ibragim was shot attempting to attack an FBI agent “absurd,” saying four or five police and FBI officers could have easily handled such an attack without needing to kill his son.

“Maybe my son knew something, some information the police did not want to be made public. Maybe they wanted to silence my son,” Todashev’s father said.

Abdulbaki Todashev said his main aim now is to go to the US and get his son’s body.

“My brother and I, we went to the American embassy today. We both want to fly there, we’ve applied for a visa,” he explained.

Abdulbaki Todashev, the father of Ibragim Todashev.(RIA Novosti / Alexander Natruskin)

‘Indications of extrajudicial killing’

Todashev’s killing “shows signs of international human rights violations,” and “indications of an extrajudicial killing,” war correspondent, political analyst, and member of the Presidential Council of Human Rights Maksim Shevchenko, said at the RIA conference. It looks like a “cold-blooded murder,” he claimed.

Ibragim Todashev was killed just two days before he was due to fly back home to Russia, Shevchenko said as he pointed to a “striking chain of coincidences” in the US.

Two “key witnesses” of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s arrest have also died recently, Shevchenko said, referring to the “accidental” death of  members of the FBI’s elite counterterrorism unit, who fell a “significant distance” from a helicopter last Thursday.

Lawyer Zaurbek Sadakhanov of the Moscow Interterritorial Bar Association said he fully believes this is a case of an extrajudicial execution.

Sadakhanov questioned why international human rights organizations, as well as Russian rights activists, have ignored the shooting.

He also urged Todashev’s friend Khusen Harlamov to return to Russia as “being a witness in the US is not safe.”

This is not the first time experts have questioned whether the FBI acted lawfully when shooting at Ibragim Todashev after he allegedly attacked an officer, with what some called “a use of excessive force.”

But a recent report revealed Todashev was completely unarmed when the FBI agent opened fire, raising questions over why lethal force was deemed necessary to subdue the strongly outnumbered man.

And from US NBC news- 

NBC News: Todashev unarmed when fatally shot by FBI

BREAKING: Todashev unarmed when killed

Friend of Boston bombing suspect unarmed when killed by FBI

RT,

30 May, 2013

Ibragim Todashev, who was killed during an FBI interview last week, was unarmed when he was fatally shot, fueling speculation that his association with Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was enough, in the eyes of police, to be fatal

The Boston bombings

The Killing of Tamerlan Tsarnaev's Would-Be Accomplice Wasn't So Simple

Atlantic Wire,

23 May, 2013

Ibragim Todashev may or may not have pulled a knife on investigators in his own apartment. He may or may not have been ready to sign a confession implicating himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a 2011 triple homicide. All we know is that lethal force was used when Todashev was shot and killed early Wednesday morning, and the only people alive to tell us the truth are the Massachusetts State Police officers and FBI agents who were in the room and pulled the trigger.

The facts: Todashev (pronounced TOE-duh-shev) was a 27-year-old ethnic Chechen who hung out with the elder Tsarnaev in Boston and moved to Florida two years ago. He was shot dead after apparently lunging at an officer after walking away from questioning at his condo near Universal Studios in Orlando. What spilled out in the immediate aftermath were reports that 1) Todashev was about to complete his written confession, perhaps strengthening the case against Tsarnaev; and 2) Todashev pulled a knife on investigators, prompting them to kill one of the only men in America who have known when Tsarnaev turned for the worse. Both of those claims seem a lot less solid today, as law enforcement sources reassess their leaks once again in this information flood of case — and as Todashev's family speaks out for the first time

Claim No. 1: He had a knife.

Where it came from: NBC News was one of the first outlets to turn the tide of the story — that Todashev drew a knife on investigators and that, after orally confessing to the triple murder but not yet finishing his written account, he got violent enough to get himself killed on the spot. The Associated Press attributed their own knife account to three anonymous law enforcement officials.

Is it true? We're not sure, but right now it looks unlikely. A couple of those three officials are now walking back their descriptions to the AP: 

Three law enforcement officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Todashev had lunged at the FBI agent with a knife. However, two of those officials said later in the day it was no longer clear what had happened. The third official had not received any new information.

That's 66 percent of sources who are "no longer clear" if Todashev had a knife. The New York Times has one of its two senior law enforcement officials claiming Todashev had a knife "or a pipe or something." In CBS's report, there is no mention of the knife, but rather a violent "move" that Todashev made:

Law enforcement officials say the 27-year-old mixed martial arts fighter made a move that threatened the investigators. 

And the FBI's official statement has no mention of a knife being drawn, but rather a "violent confrontation" which might be the "move" CBS is reporting: 

The agent, two Massachusetts State Police troopers, and other law enforcement personnel were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the individual

Why it matters

Well, one of the big questions is why the FBI used lethal force against Todashev. "This is something they should be trained for," Todashev's wife, Reni Manukyan, tells The Wall Street Journal today. "They should be trained to not use a gun in any way." If Todashev had a knife and charged at law enforcement officials, an argument could be made that lives were in danger. To be sure, he had a history: The Boston Globe describes Todashev as "a professional mixed martial arts fighter with a violent ­record."

But why shoot, when you've got a man with potential answers about the man behind a terror attack on American soil in front of you? "If somebody jumps on you and you have a gun, and you don’t do something, the gun will quickly come into play," one of the Times sources said. As NBC West Palm Beach reported, Todashev was meeting with FBI agents and two Massachusetts state troopers when he was shot. Outlets like New York's Daily News reported that Todashev "stabbed an FBI agent" before being shot — that would be harder to do without a knife.

As Gawker's Max Rivin-Nadler points out, investigators will have to figure out how Todashev, who was being interviewed at his house for three hours, came to be in possession of a knife (and if he actually did) and why a room full of law enforcement agents used lethal force against a man who might have been armed, at most, with a knife. Or something. And they'll have to deal with the fallout in a larger terror investigation and trial of Tsarnaev's younger brother

Claim No. 2: He was going to own up to the murder, on paper.

Where it came from: The string of the Boston marathon bombing investigation has led investigators to Orlando, to look for answers in the gruesome murder on September 11, 2011 in Waltham, Massachusetts, of three men — including an apparent "best friend" of Tsarnaev — who were left with slit throats and covered in marijuana, an apparent drug deal gone bad but possibly worse... or at least a sign that Tsarnaev had been a drug dealer or a killer before he took what had been thought as the fateful trip to Russian in 2012. Todashev had reportedly been questioned for some time, and had admitted to the investigators at his home that he and Tsarnaev were responsible, but he didn't finish or sign the written confession. And then:

"As investigators pushed at him towards a confession, he snapped," CBS's Bob Orr reported.

"Agents said Todashev was about to sign a confession admitting to a triple slaying that occurred in Boston in 2011," NBC Orlando reported.

"A second law enforcement official confirmed Todashev made the confession," reads CNN's report.

Is it true? Well, it's a dead man's word versus agents and officials close to the investigation. And Todashev's Chechen friends and family, who are insisting that they all distrusted the FBI but cooperated — and that nothing like this was suspected in the "final interview." In the days following the bombing, Todashev's wife tells WFTV in Boston, "He expected that they were going to come and question him, because they both come from the same place from Chechnya." That led to a series of interviews and the seizure of his computer and phone, she told the Journal. "He was supposed to be on a plane tomorrow, but he told he had to meet with the FBI," his father, Abdulbaki Todashev, told The Boston Globe in an interview from Russia today. "They killed my son and then they made up a reason to explain it." Turns out, Todashev didn't have a lawyer.

And if Todashev was going to sign a confession and admit that he and Tsarnaev were guilty of the triple homicide in 2011, his friends sure didn't see it coming. "Several of Todashev's friends told the Sentinel that the FBI told him this week's discussion would be his last interview and that he was going to be cleared," The Orlando Sentinel's Jerriann Sullivan reported. Then again, if you were going to sign a confession admitting to a triple homicide, you probably wouldn't tell your friends, would you? 

"I think something went wrong there. I think they just shot him. He didn't do anything. I know him. He just wanted everything to be over," one of Todashev's roommates told NBC West Palm Beach, and his estranged wife added, "He wasn't involved. So he was not even nervous [to talk with the FBI]." Todashev's wife could be talking about the Boston bombings, but she was right about Todashev being cooperative. Todashev, according to CBS, had been talking with the FBI since two days after the Tsarnaev brothers were identified. He even postponed that trip to Chechnya to work with investigators his roommates said, making his "snap" seem even more random. 

Why it matters: A confession would have solved the triple homicide, and it would have cemented Tsarnaev's role in that crime. Since reading Dzhokhar Tsarnaev his miranda rights, investigators haven't been able to extract information about the Tsarnaevs as freely as they'd like — or at least it hasn't spilled out in public as much as the people of Boston would like to hear. A confession might have been a big piece in the puzzle of the Tsarnaev brothers. Instead, we're left with a Jack Bauer-style tale of secret confessions turned deadly, with more questions than answers. 

What's perhaps more puzzling is that the story doesn't seem to add up: What new piece of information makes a guy who has been cooperating with FBI agents for the last month or so turn on them? Could the seizure of the computer have led to more revelations? Could the threat of jail time have dawned on him? And even more macabre, one of Todashev's friends told NBC Orlando that he had been questioned with Todashev by agents on Tuesday night — and that Todashev felt like he was going to die. "He felt inside he was going to get shot," Khusn Taramiv said. "I told him, 'Everything is going to be fine, don't worry about it.' He said, 'I have a really bad feeling.'" 

What happens now? The The Orlando Sentinel reports that the FBI's team of investigators will be picking up the pieces and trying to figure out what exactly happened, as is routine when a suspect who has very important information regarding a terror suspect and unsolved triple homicide is shot to death. The New York Times points out that there may even be public questioning of who, exactly, killed the would-be accomplice: "It was not certain who, or how many officers, had fired on Mr. Todashev." What we do know is that Todashev's death isn't immune to uncertainty, and confusing conflict of facts that have seemingly followed the Tsarnaevs and the FBI for more than six weeks since that fateful afternoon in Boston.