Was Boston Bomber a white supremacist? Investigation finds Tamerlan Tsarnaev was in possession of right-wing extremist literature in run-up to terror attack
Mail, UK/August 5, 2013
By Anna Edwards
One of the Boston Bomber suspects subscribed to right-wing white supremacy literature and government conspiracy theories before the horrific attack which killed three people.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev read extreme right-wing literature that claimed 'Hitler had a point' and articles about the 'rape of our gun rights', an investigation has found.
The 26-year-old also had material that claimed the 9/11 attacks and the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing were government conspiracies.
He and his brother Dzhokhar, originally from Chechnya, allegedly carried out the bombing at the Boston marathon's finish line on April 15 which killed three people and injured more than 260.
Until now the pair are believed to have carried out the attacks due to their radical jihadist beliefs.
But an investigation by the BBC's Panorama programme has learnt that Tamerlan possessed white supremacist literature, and material on mass killings and how victims were murdered.
After the shoot-out, it emerged that Tamerlan had become interested in Islam - but to what extent is unclear.
A spokesman for Tamerlan's mosque in Cambridge, Massachuessets, said Tamerlan only prayed there occasionally, and described him as an angry man who latched onto Islam, Panorama reported.
The older of the two Chechen brothers once dreamed of representing the U.S. as a boxer, it was reported, but before the bombings had turned to Islam.
Tamerlan wasn't a devout practicing Muslim, but within the last two years had begun praying five times a day, his aunt Maret Tsarnaeva has said.
The relative said that the brothers and their family came to the United States in 2002 after she helped them apply for refugee status.
Tsarnaev has a three-year-old daughter called Zahara with Katherine Russell, 24, who converted to Islam for her husband.
He received his American citizenship on September 11, 2012. He traveled to Russia last year and returned to the U.S. six months later, government officials told The Associated Press.
The eldest brother was killed in a police shootout on April 19 – four days after he and his younger brother Dzhokhar allegedly set off bombs during the Boston Marathon.
The gun battle happened a day after the FBI released images of him and his younger brother at the Boston marathon.
His brother, 19-year-old Dzhokhar, was found hiding in a boat parked in a suburban yard and suffered a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the neck.
They allegedly dumped two pressure cooker bombs crammed with shrapnel and detonated them near the finish line, killing three people, including an eight-year-old boy, and injuring 180 more.
Three people were killed in the cowardly attack and 264 more were wounded, several of whom lost limbs.
Dzhokhar, 19, has pleaded not guilty to 30 charges, including 17 that carry the death penalty.
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