Alex Constantine - May 22, 2013
May 22, 2013
An FBI agent shot and killed an Orlando man early Wednesday who had been questioned for several hours about his alleged ties to Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the victim's friend told local media.
NBC News, quoting unidentified sources, said the FBI agent shot and killed 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev when the victim allegedly started to attack him while he was being questioned in a Florida condominium.
ABC News quoted an unidentified law enforcement officer as saying that the FBI agent had felt threatened.
"There was some sort of aggressive movement that led the FBI agent to believe he was under threat and he opened fire," the law enforcement official told ABC News.
FBI officials confirmed that a man died while one of its agents was "conducting official duties," the Orlando Sentinel reports, but they would not elaborate.
The Sentinel and WESH-TV also identified the victim as Todashev, who was arrested May 4 on charges of aggravated battery in connection with a fight in a parking lot.
The television station quotes Khusn Taramiv, a friend of the victim, as saying both of them had been questioned for almost three hours Tuesday about the Boston bombing case.
Taramiv said his friend knew Boston bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because they were both mixed martial-arts fighters, WESH and The Sentinel report.
"Back when (Todashev) used to live in Boston, they used to hang out -- not hang out -- he knew him. They met a few times because (Todashev) was a MMA fighter and (Tsarnaev) was a boxer. They just knew each other. That's it," said Taramiv.
He added that Todashev last spoke with Tsarnaev via phone or Skype a week or perhaps a month before the April 15 bombings, but that the call only lasted about five minutes and had nothing to do with the marathon attack.
Taramiv also said FBI agents had been following him and Todashev for several days.
Tsarnaev, 26, died in a shootout with police three days after the Boston bombings at the finish line that killed three people. His 19-year-old brother, Dzhokhar, has been charged in connection with the bombings and is being held at a prison medical center outside Boston.
WESH-TV quotes Taramiv as saying that the FBI, after a long interview with him and Todashev on Tuesday, said they needed his friend for a couple of more hours.
"They told me they're going to bring him back," Taramiv told WESH-TV. "They never brought him back. He felt inside he was going to get shot."
The shooting occurred at a condominium in Orlando, but details were not immediately available.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/05/22/fbi-boston-bombing-killed-orlando/2350065/
Also see: "FBI: Kissimmee man shot after attacking agent during questioning in Boston Marathon bombings"