Boston Bombing Suspects’ Mother Says Tamerlan Tsarnaev Sounded ‘Alarmed’ On the Phone Before He was Killed [VIDEO]
Suspected Boston bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev called his mother hours before he was killed admitting that the FBI contacted him and asked him to come in for questioning, she said.
The older of the two brothers suspected on the Boston Marathon bombings, 26-year-old Tsarnaev was killed late Thursday following a shootout with police. Earlier that same day he called his mother, Zubeidat Tsaranev, and on Sunday she revealed details about their phone conversation.
"He would call me every day from America in the last days," Zubeidat Tsarnaev said told the Los Angeles Times in a phone interview from her home in the Russian republic of Dagestan. "During our last conversation on the morning [before the shootout], he was especially touching and tender and alarmed at the same time.
"He said he got a private phone call from [the FBI] and said that they told him he was under suspicion and should come see them."
The last words Tamerlan told her before he hung up the phone was, "If you need me, you will find me."
Zubeidat admitted that the Federal Bureau of Investigation followed Tamerlan for several years, and when he returned from a 2012 trip to Dagestan they called him. Zubeidat said the FBI "asked him what was the purpose of his visit to his homeland."
The news report cited former FBI agent and Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Mich.), who said the Bureau kept tabs on the Chechen ever since the Russian intelligence service flagged him in early 2011 as a possible Islamic radical.
Zebeidat also spoke about her younger son Dzhokhar, 19, saying he was with Tamerlan when the mother and son had their final phone conversation.
"When [Tamerlan] talked to me that last time, Dzhokhar was in his house too, and he said he would give him a lift home," their mother said. "And then the next day my daughter Bella called me and said, 'Mama, turn on the television.' ... Now I live with the television turned on at all times."
In recent months Tamerlan told his mother several times that he wanted to move back to Dagestan, according to the report. He said he had even persuaded his American wife, Katherine Russell, to move back with him and their 3-year-old daughter Zahara.
"He wanted to be among his people, among his relatives, close to his roots," she said.
Zebeidat, her husband and children immigrated to America in 2002 but the parents returned to Dagestan a year ago while their sons and two daughters remained in the U.S., according to the news report.
