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OR......Set him up nicely, with a fancy car, sexy GF, free apartment, determine he knows too much through info provided by the plant, hold a gun to his head to make him confess to another crime that had previously been 'successfully' arranged for, but extinguish him when he refuses to behave like a viable patsy any longer, or to end an extortion game- THEN arrange a convenient trip home for informant. Remember to paint him as a bad guy, and an Uzi on his door. Make sure the same folks who prearranged his homicide, will be 'responsible' (maintain silence) for investigating his homicide. Pay his family and separated wife off in exchange for their silence. Done.Nice. Kill the guy, then deport anyone who questions the whitewash.
wsws
US detains witness in FBI killing of Ibragim Todashev
By Andrea Peters
11 July 2013
Amid a continuing cover-up of the FBI killing of Ibragim Todashev, US immigration officials are detaining Tatiana Gruzdeva, Todashev’s roommate, and preparing to deport her from the country on charges of overstaying her visa. Civil liberties groups believe Gruzdeva has valuable information about Todashev’s interactions with the FBI.
Todashev, an acquaintance of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was allegedly a key witness in the bombing. He was shot and killed by an FBI agent on May 22, after being interrogated in his apartment for many hours by investigators. He had been been repeatedly questioned in the days and weeks before his death.
There has been no official investigation into Todashev’s murder, though government officials and media sources gave wildly conflicting accounts. Initially, officials cited in the press claimed that the 27-year-old “went crazy,” lunging at officers with a knife. This then became a “samurai sword,” a “metal pole,” and even a “broomstick.” Other sources have since reported that Todashev was unarmed when he was killed.
It also remains unclear as to who was even in the room at the time of his death, with Washington Post and New York Times accounts citing conflicting official reports.
Press reports are now circulating that just prior to his death, Todashev was preparing to sign a statement implicating himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a multiple homicide in Waltham, Massachusetts in 2011. The murder evidently involved bodies found with their throats cut and covered in marijuana. Todashev’s ex-wife and father firmly deny that he could have been involved in the murders, insisting that he stayed away from drugs.
Washington continues to work to silence others who might have information about Todashev’s death and his relationship with the FBI. In mid-May, the young man’s roommate, Tatiana Gruzdeva, a Russian national born in Moldova who was studying in the US, was detained by immigration officials.
Gruzdeva was imprisoned and slated for deportation on July 1, based on claims that she overstayed her visa. Her “voluntary departure” has now inexplicably been pushed back by 30 days, with Gruzdeva remaining in custody.
She was picked up by authorities a few days before Todashev’s arrest, shortly after civil liberties groups contacted her, believing that she could provide information about the FBI’s dealings with Todashev before his murder. The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which has called for an independent investigation into Todashev’s death, believes that her detention and deportation are intended to prevent Gruzdeva from speaking publicly about the case.
Executive Director of CAIR’s Tampa, Florida office Hassan Shibly told the World Socialist Web Site, “There is a lot of mystery around the detention. There appears to be some sort of cover-up going on.”
Shibly pointed out that the onus is on the government to explain its actions. Immigration court officials working under the direction of the Department of Justice, which also oversees the FBI, have refused to comment on Gruzdeva’s case, citing privacy laws.
According to Shibly, there are reports that the FBI was harassing Todashev’s friends in the weeks leading up to his murder, threatening them with the loss of their green cards if they did not spy on Islamic establishments in the area and provide other information. CAIR believes that Gruzdeva can “shed light on these issues.”
Shibly also stated that CAIR’s investigation into Todashev’s killing and an independent analysis of forensic evidence established that Todashev was unarmed at the time of his death, lying on the ground. “This in and of itself is disturbing,” Shibly noted.
“ At best ,” he stated, “the FBI did an incompetent job.”
The refusal of officials to provide a credible explanation of Todashev’s killing or a justification for Gruzdeva’s detention reeks of a cover-up. Rather than make critical testimony publicly available, the state is killing and locking up witnesses in a murder case bound up with a major terror bombing that led to an extraordinary lockdown of a major US city.
This makes all the more troubling the evidence of numerous connections between US intelligence officials and the alleged perpetrators of the Boston bombings.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was a known quantity to the US intelligence community years before the Boston Marathon bombing. In 2011, the Kremlin alerted US officials to concerns about Tsarnaev’s links to Chechen jihadists. Nonetheless, he was able to move freely across the US border, visiting Russia, including regions in the country with active Islamic separatist movements.
According to his family, Tamerlan was repeatedly visited by the FBI for several years. His mother said that Tamerlan was “controlled by the FBI for three to five years” before the bombing.
The Tsarnaev brothers’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni, founded a group called the Congress of Chechen International Organizations, which helped supply Islamic insurgents in Chechnya with mine resistant boots. Tsarni was married to the daughter of Graham Fuller, the one-time vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council at the CIA. Tsarni registered his pro-Islamist organization at Fuller’s home address.
Questions also remain about Todashev himself. A May 22 NBC article reported that US officials had stated that Todashev “had some connections with radical Chechen rebels.”
He received asylum from the US in 2008, on the grounds that he feared for his life in his native Russia. Mark Kramer, director of the Cold War Studies program at Harvard, told the Boston Globe on July 5 that he “didn’t see any justification for granting asylum” to Todashev. He added that he was “baffled” because he had “known of others who applied and been turned down in cases far more deserving.”
Apparently, however, Todashev was in the process of moving back to Russia—the country that he supposedly fled fearing for his life in 2013—when he was questioned and murdered by the FBI. Todashev’s friend, Kushen Taramov, has stated that Todashev postponed his travel plans in response to FBI demands that he stay for questioning.
bks » Sat Jun 29, 2013 8:43 pm wrote:My convoluted effort to synthesize some of the info on Todashev's killing, and place it in the history of FBI perfidy in/related to Boston. Maybe someone can embed the video, since I'm still a bit slow in that regard?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5LH3vP2F9A
FBI bars Florida from releasing autopsy report in shooting of Todashev, friend of Marathon bombing suspect
By Maria Sacchetti, Globe Staff
A Florida medical examiner’s office said Tuesday that the FBI has ordered the office not to release its autopsy report of a Chechen man fatally shot by a Boston FBI agent in May because of the federal agency’s active internal investigation into his death.
The medical examiner’s office said it completed the autopsy report on Ibragim Todashev, a friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber c, on July 8 and that the report was “ready for release.” The agent shot and killed Todashev on May 22 in his Orlando apartment during an interrogation related to the Boston Marathon bombings.
“The FBI has informed this office that the case is still under active investigation and thus not to release the document,” Tony Miranda, forensic records coordinator for Orange and Osceola counties in Orlando, said in a letter to the media today. Miranda said state law bars his office from releasing the report if an criminal investigation is ongoing.
The FBI and the Justice Department are conducting an internal inquiry into the shooting, but critics have called for an independent inquiry, questioning the blanket of secrecy surrounding the case.
The FBI and the Massachusetts State Police sought out Todashev after the Marathon bombings, but have refused to release details of the shooting. Media reports have provided conflicting accounts: Some said Todashev attacked the agent with a blade during an interrogation, while others said Todashev was unarmed. Another said he lunged at the agent with a metal pole or a broomstick.
The medical examiner's office said it would check with the FBI every month for permission to release the autopsy report, and that such delays most frequently happen with homicide cases.
According to media reports, Todashev was about to sign a confession implicating himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who is now dead, in the 2011 slayings of three men in Waltham. Instead, Todashev lunged at the agent, who was injured, according to reports. The agent shot Todashev multiple times, according to family members who released photos of Todashev’s dead body as part of their call for an inquiry into his death.
Family members and advocacy groups have questioned the media accounts, pointing out that Todashev had repeatedly cooperated with the FBI and had been weakened by recent knee surgery.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations and the ACLU have called for independent inquiries into the shooting.
The council said in a letter to the Department of Justice, which oversees the FBI and is participating in the internal inquiry, that FBI agents had approached Todashev in an aggressive manner. In one instance, the council said, six law enforcement agents drew their guns and pushed Todashev to the ground.
Todashev, a 27-year-old ethnic Chechen like Tsarnaev, came to America in 2008 to study English and won asylum that year from his native Russia. He lived in Allston and Cambridge before moving south to Florida.
A mixed martial arts fighter, Todashev was arrested in 2010 in Boston for a road-rage incident and again in Florida weeks before he was killed for allegedly beating a man in a fight over a parking space.
According to CAIR in Florida, which is conducting its own investigation into Todashev’s slaying, Todashev had spoken to the FBI at least three times at their offices after the Marathon bombings. Family and friends have said he postponed a trip home to Chechnya to speak with the FBI the night of May 21, staying up with them past midnight until he was killed.
ACLU Calls on State Officials to Launch Independent Investigations into FBI Shooting Death of Ibragim Todashev
July 22, 2013
ROLE OF MASSACHUSETTS STATE POLICE AND ORLANDO PD SHOULD BE FOCUS IN
SHOOTING DEATH OF MAN LINKED TO BOSTON MARATHON BOMBING SUSPECT
& WALTHAM TRIPLE HOMICIDE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Monday, July 22, 2013
CONTACT:
Raquel Ronzone, Communications Specialist, 617-482-3170 x335, rronzone@aclum.org
Amy Turkel, ACLU of Florida Communications Director, 786-363-2722, aturkel@aclufl.org
BOSTON and ORLANDO — The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts and ACLU of Florida today called upon officials in their respective states to conduct independent investigations into the shooting death of Ibragim Todashev, who was killed by law enforcement officers on May 22nd during a joint interrogation by FBI officials and local law enforcement officers from Massachusetts and Florida.
In a letter to Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, the ACLU of Massachusetts urged the AG to assign the state Civil Rights Division the task of investigating the role of Massachusetts State Police in the shooting death. The ACLU of Florida simultaneously issued a request to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) to conduct an investigation into the role of Orlando police officers in the incident.
Two Massachusetts state troopers, along with Orlando police officers, were present with FBI officers during the interrogation of Todashev at his home in Orlando, Florida on May 22 during which he was shot to death. There are conflicting reports as to whether the Massachusetts troopers were in the room at the time of the shooting and whether their purpose at the interrogation was to investigate the Boston Marathon bombings, a 2011 triple-homicide in Waltham, or something else. The role of the Orlando police officers is even more unclear.
Notwithstanding the involvement of state personnel in questioning Todashev, and an earlier call by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) for an independent investigation into the shooting death, public reports indicate that the only investigation into Todashev’s shooting is being led by the FBI.
The FBI’s approach, meanwhile, has fostered widespread public distrust. Immediately after the shooting, the FBI released a statement claiming that Todashev had initiated “a violent confrontation,” and press reports cited anonymous law enforcement officials who made statements seemingly in support of that claim. But subsequent statements have offered contradictory reports. Initially, it was reported that either an FBI agent or another law enforcement official shot Todashev after he attacked an FBI agent with a knife or other sharp object. Then new stories emerged, asserting that Todashev lunged at the FBI agent with a metal pole or broomstick, or that Todashev overturned a table, or that he was actually unarmed.
“A person was shot and killed at the hands of law enforcement in Florida. That alone should require Florida officials to investigate, and explain to the public what happened,” said Howard Simon, ACLU of Florida Executive Director.
“Florida officials are simply deferring to the FBI, allowing the FBI to investigate itself, but it is difficult to accept the FBI’s honesty in this matter. The FBI has offered completely incompatible explanations, they have failed to explain how these inconsistent stories found their way into newspaper accounts of the shootings, and have not offered any clarifying comment about what really happened,” Simon added. “Due to the widely varying explanations that have surfaced about the shooting and the involvement of Massachusetts and Florida law enforcement, officials in both states should conduct their own investigations.”
Public skepticism in the FBI’s ability to investigate itself was heightened when the The New York Times reported on June 19 that public records obtained through litigation showed that between 1993 and 2011, F.B.I. agents fatally shot an estimated 70 “subjects” and wounded about 80 others, but that FBI internal shooting investigations deemed every one of those episodes to be “justified.”
“Recent disclosures in The New York Times show that FBI shooting investigations, even when carried out with ostensible oversight of both the Justice Department’s inspector general and the Civil Rights Division, virtually always clear the agency of wrong-doing,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “Secrecy surrounding the FBI’s investigation of the Todashev shooting has deepened the public’s mistrust.”
Already in this investigation, the FBI has gagged the medical examiner from divulging the cause of death, the federal government has taken steps to detain and press for the speedy deportation of a potential witness in the investigation of the shooting, and, to the best of our knowledge, the FBI’s final report will be classified.
“An independent investigation is necessary to maintain public confidence in law enforcement and get to the bottom of the events surrounding Todashev’s death,” she added.
Todashev’s shooting death also raises concerns regarding accountability for local police assigned to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) program, which the ACLU and other civil liberties groups have voiced for years. According to news reports, at least one of the Massachusetts state troopers was assigned to the regional JTTF.
“Since 2001, the number of local law enforcement officers assigned to the JTTF has more than quadrupled,” said Rose. “Yet the citizens of the various states who pay their salaries have no idea how they are supervised or even what, precisely, they are doing. It’s time to impose some accountability on local law enforcement who are assigned to FBI-JTTF operations in general.”
A copy of the letter ACLU of Florida letter is available here: http://aclufl.org/resources/letter-to-f ... dashevpdf/
A copy of the letter ACLU of Massachusetts letter is available here: http://aclufl.org/resources/aclu-of-massachusetts-
seemslikeadream » Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:15 am wrote:Rachel is still on the story
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/#52691293
second story in the list
Increased FBI oversight sought as Boston bomber questions mount
seemslikeadream » Wed Aug 07, 2013 9:15 am wrote:Rachel is still on the story
http://www.nbcnews.com/id/26315908/#52691293
second story in the list
Increased FBI oversight sought as Boston bomber questions mount
pianoblues » Thu Aug 08, 2013 5:20 am wrote:Ruslan Tsarni testified for the defense team of Mukhtar Ablyazov in the UK. Surely that was a big no-no for Nursultan Nazarbayev...especially since Rus exposed some of the endemic corruption within Kazakhstan, re; "the millions of US dollars in bribes from an intermediary for U.S. oil firms in the 1990s"; Exxon, Shell....Apart from respectable oil resources, Kazakhstan is rich rich rich in Uranium- hello- bombs anyone?? which recently deceased Marc Rich ( remember that 1st time fab presidential pardon of a fugitive?) and his Glencore Xstrata group profitably tinker in there. Recently Ablyazov's wife and child were illegally deported back to the home country from Italy ( coincidentally Nazarbayev happened to be vactioning down the road from Berlusconi's place in Sardinia at the time)- an act that nearly brought down Italy's fragile government. Some days later Ablyazov too was picked up, in southern France, betrayed by some Barbie like Ukrainian blonde (strikingly similar to the now deported Moldivian gf of Todashev) , that Scotland Yard and Interpol followed (hired?)...I wonder if Ruslan was being punished for eventually playing for the wrong team, after all the obvious investment towards his education and training and family favors supplied by team CIA. Retribution; we set up your nephews. This idea is far more plausible to me then that the connection between Ruslan and his nephews was and is nil. And geez Louise! Whatever DID become of Hussein, Ruslan's other nephew that lived and went to school with Tamerlin and Dzhokhar??? The radicalization stuff, for me, was just part of the packaging--standard FBI/CIA training tactic...'and for good measure we'll toss in a few Mercedes!" Todashev musta heard- cuz he got hisself a nice Mercedes too long before the bullet to his head. The Russians let Tamerlin (and his parents) back into the country...twice, despite their already having given the FBI AND CIA warning about his radicalization....why??? Why would the Russians let Tamerlin back into the country IF they were seriously worried about him? Russia has notoriously tight security.
Wait....Todashev had a mercedes too? What, were they just giving new mercedes out to every Chechen youth in America?
"Ruslan Tsarni, who is from Kyrgyzstan, the former Soviet republic to the south of Kazakhstan, worked “in various capacities” with a closely knit network of associates led by Nazarbayev’s son-in-law from 2000 to 2008 that regularly engaged in fraudulent business practices, he said in a witness statement to the High Court in London in December 2010, when he was 39 years old." http://www.theamla.com/viewpostsbyuser. ... =1&Page=32
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