Details released in 2011 FBI interview of older Tsarnaev
Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev told the FBI in a 2011 interview — two years before the deadly attack — that he did not look at extremist material online and he would only use violence to defend someone, according to the newly released document.
“Tamerlan doesn’t like to fight for the sake of violence,” states the newly released report, taken April 22, 2011, by two FBI special agents. “Tamerlan has fought to protect others. Tamerlan was in several fights in school in Kyrgykzstan. Tamerlan stood up for kids who were being bullied by others. Tamerlan never picked a fight.”
Agents asked him about his online activity. He said he had three email addresses but only checked one, and had not checked it in three or four months.
“Tamerlan goes on the internet to read the news and current events,” the report reads. “Tamerlan doesn’t search for anything related to extremist Islamic material. Tamerlan is aware these websites exist, but he doesn’t look at them.”
Investigators have said Tsarnaev got the instructions for the pressurecooker bombs, which he built and detonated with his younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, from the website for Inspire magazine, an al-Qaeda publication that advocates violence against the West.
After killing three people and injuring hundreds of others in the April 15, 2013, bombing, Tsarnaev executed MIT police officer Sean Collier four days later as he and Dzhokhar attempted to elude a police dragnet.
The FBI asked about his religion and Tsarnaev told agents he did not have many Muslim friends. He told the FBI he went to mosque about once a week, and did not think there could be any Islamic radicals in Cambridge.
“Tamerlan has respect for all religions and feels that any religion makes your life better,” the FBI wrote.