Judge gives Tsarnaev team time to study FBI interview on Waltham slays
A federal judge is giving Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s appellate team one week to review a videotaped interview the FBI conducted with Ibragim Todashev days before he was shot dead by an agent after allegedly confessing he and the Boston Marathon bomber’s older brother had brutally butchered three men in Waltham.
According to a court filing by the U.S. Department of Justice, the video recording was made on May 16, 2013 — six days before Todashev’s death. The filing does not address the interview’s relevance to Tsarnaev’s bid for a new trial or whether his lawyers will also have access to any notes or recordings from an interview Todashev was engaged in with FBI Special Agent Aaron McFarlane, state police Sgt. Curtis Cinelli and trooper Joel Gagne. During that interview on May 22, 2013, authorities allege, Todashev, 27, charged McFarlane and Cinelli in his Orlando apartment with a 5-foot pole and was fatally shot by McFarlane.
State police believed Tsarnaev’s late brother Tamerlan, 26, may have committed the Sept. 11, 2011, near-decapitations of Raphael Teken, 37, Erik Weissman, 31, and Brendan Mess, 25, two years before the April 15, 2013, terrorist attack on the marathon finish line in Copley Square. Todashev “acknowledged his involvement in the Waltham murders and agreed to write a statement” just before he was killed, according to federal court documents filed in Orlando.
Appellate Judge Juan R. Torruella has set extraordinarily tight security measures for the viewing party, which is set to begin Oct. 15 at the John Joseph Moakley United States Courthouse in South Boston.
Only attorneys with “active top secret security clearance” will be permitted to view the footage, which will be played on a laptop provided by the U.S. Court of Appeals. Tsarnaev, 25, is banned from learning its contents, per Torruella.
The lawyers are forbidden from bringing any electronic devices with them and any notes taken must be handwritten and will be considered sealed materials by the court.
Tsarnaev’s argument for a new trial and for sparing him a federal execution is due Nov. 19.