'They were set up, FBI followed them for years' - Tsarnaevs' mother to RT

With the 24-hour manhunt for the second suspect of the Boston bombing closed, RT remembers its conversation with the parents of the Tsarnaev brothers, who claimed all along their children were set up.

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Zubeidat Tsarnaeva maintains her younger son is innocent and like so many of the brothers’ acquaintances, claims they were good, courteous kids and model students – especially the younger 19-year-old Dzhokhar. A US citizen who is presently in the Russian Republic of Dagestan, she revealed to RT some suspicions of her own.

Grief-stricken at the latest developments in the case, Zubeidat expressed her dismay at the allegations, recounting Dzhokhar’s life in the US and talking of his status among his peers and friends: he was an honors student, loved by many of his friends and teachers. And his older brother Tamerlan was a star athlete and student, whose ambition was to one day appear on the US Olympic wrestling team.

But her biggest suspicion surrounding the case was the constant FBI surveillance she said her family was subjected to over the years. She is surprised that having been so stringent with the entire family, the FBI had no idea the sons were supposedly planning a terrorist act.

“They used to come [to our] home, they used to talk to me…they were telling me that he [the older, 26-y/o Tamerlan] was really an extremist leader and that they were afraid of him. They told me whatever information he is getting, he gets from these extremist sites… they were controlling him, they were controlling his every step…and now they say that this is a terrorist act!Never ever is this true, my sons are innocent!”

When asked if maybe she didn’t know about some of her sons’ more secret aspirations and dark secrets, she said “That’s impossible. My sons would never keep a secret.”

Finally, she said that if she could speak to her youngest – Dzhokhar, she would tell him, “Save your life and tell the truth, that you haven’t done anything, that this is a set up!”

In an interview with Russian television the brothers’ father Anzor Tsarnaev also claimed that they are innocent and somebody might have set them up.

“I’m sure about my children, in their purity. I don’t know what happened and who did this.  God knows and he will punish them,” he told Zvezda channel. “Somebody might have set them up. I don’t know who and because of their cowardice killed the boy.”

The father said he was unable to contact his sons or other relatives. “Everything is switched off. I can’t reach my brother there either. I can’t reach anyone! I just want information. Now I fear for my boy, that they will now shoot him dead and then will say 'He had a gun'.”

“I fear for my son, for his life. They should arrest him, bring him, but alive. Justice should investigate who is right and who is wrong,” he said.

Mr Tsarnaev recently spoke to his elder son, Tamerlan [Suspect #1], telling him that he should take care of his younger brother. Speaking of the Boston marathon bombing he told his son “Ok, Thanks to Allah you were not close to there and did not suffer.”

“I remember I even asked “Who could do something like that?”

“We just talked. I asked him about our Dzhokhar [Suspect #2], how was he. I told him, he should help him out and keep an eye on him, so that he studies well. I told him ‘You left school, got married too early, but the kid should finish [his education]’. Because this is life – those who don’t study work a lot and work hard. That’s why I was telling them study”.

Russian 'Alpha' Special Forces team-veteran and vice-president of its International Association, Aleksey Filatov, believes there is more to the case than meets the eye. He emphasizes, firstly, that the origin and religious beliefs of the suspect, along with the specifics of the bombing, have all been carefully pre-meditated and planned by someone within the United States in order to distract the public from the true identity and long-term aims of the actual planners.

“Putting a young Chechen in those shoes was top-notch professionalism in distracting everyone from the true identity and motives of the planner,” he told RT.

“The executors were chosen to confuse the American public and simultaneously untie the White House’s hands in a way that would justify a departure from the rhetoric of non-involvement in military action on foreign territories.”