The
mother of the two Boston bombing suspects, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, speaks
at a news conference in Makhachkala, the southern Russian province of
Dagestan, Thursday, April 25, 2013. (AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. intelligence
agencies added the mother of the Boston bombing suspects to a government
terrorism database 18 months before the bombings, two officials told
The Associated Press. She called it “lies and hypocrisy” and said she
has never been linked to crimes or terrorism.
The CIA asked for the Boston terror
suspect and his mother to be added to a terrorist database in the fall
of 2011, after the Russian government contacted the agency with concerns
that both had become religious militants, according to officials
briefed on the investigation. About six months earlier, the FBI
investigated Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his mother, Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, also
at Russia’s request, one of the officials said. The FBI found no ties to
terrorism.
The revelation that the FBI had also
investigated Zubeidat Tsarnaeva and the CIA arranged for her to be added
to the terrorism database deepened the mystery around the family. The
Tsarnaevs are ethnic Chechens from southern Russia who immigrated to the
Boston area in the past 11 years. Tsarnaeva, a naturalized U.S. citizen
who has appeared on television interviews since the attacks and
reversed her decision to return to the U.S. after the bombings, has said
her sons could never have been behind the deadly attacks and believes
they were framed.
The officials spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity because they were not allowed to speak publicly about the ongoing case.
AP
Tsarnaev, who died in a gun battle with
police last week, and his younger brother, Dzhokhar, are accused of
carrying out the bombings. Officials said that before he was advised of
his constitutional rights to remain silent or consult a lawyer, Dzhokhar
admitted to FBI interrogators that the brothers committed the bombings
and that he was recruited by his brother to participate only a week or
two before the attacks.
Previously U.S. officials have said
only that the FBI investigated Tamerlan. But in March 2011, the Russians
asked the FBI to look into Tsarnaev and his mother because of concerns
they were religious militants who planned to travel back to Russia, the
official said.
The FBI found nothing to link either
person to terrorism, and the FBI closed the investigations in June 2011.
Then, the Russians in the fall sent the same warning to the CIA. The
CIA asked the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center to add the mother’s
and son’s names to its huge, classified database of people known to be
terrorists and those who are suspected of having terror ties, called the
Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE.
Being in that database does not mean
the U.S. government has evidence that links someone to terrorism. About a
year ago, there were some 745,000 names in the database. Intelligence
analysts add names and partial names to TIDE when terror-related
intelligence is shared with them.
Tsarnaeva said it would not surprise her if she was listed in a U.S. terror database.
“It’s all lies and hypocrisy,” she
told the AP from Dagestan. “I’m sick and tired of all this nonsense that
they make up about me and my children. People know me as a regular
person, and I’ve never been mixed up in any criminal intentions,
especially any linked to terrorism.”
AP
A search of U.S. criminal records
showed only that Tsarnaeva was arrested in June 2012 in Natick, Mass.,
on a shoplifting charge over the theft of $1,624 worth of women’s
clothing from a Lord & Taylor department store. She was arrested and
charged with larceny over $250 and two counts of malicious or wanton
property damage. Tamerlan had traveled to Russia in January 2012 and
returned in July.
Tsarnaeva accused U.S. law enforcement of killing her elder son.
“They are already talking about that
we are terrorists, I am terrorist, they’ve told that I was doing
something terroristic,” Tsarnaeva said.
Some lawmakers in Washington have
questioned whether the FBI adequately investigated Tsarnaev and his
mother in 2011. Over the course of that year, the FBI reached out to
Russia three times for more information, U.S. officials said. The first
time was in March 2011, when they received the initial tip from the
Russians. The second was in June 2011 when they were preparing to close
the investigation. The third time was in the fall of 2011 after the CIA
received the same tip from the Russians.
One of the officials said the FBI
never found the type of derogatory information on Tsarnaev and his
mother that would have elevated their profiles among counterterrorism
investigators or would have formally placed them on a terror watch list.
This post has been updated.
Editor’s note: An
Associated Press headline initially referred to Zubeidat Tsarnaeva
being on a terror “watch list” but changed it to “terror database.”
TheBlaze’s headline has been updated to reflect this.
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