"Todashev’s father, seeking answers, plans to visit US" by David Filipov | Globe Staff, August 04, 2013
MAKHACHKALA, Russia — The father of a Chechen man fatally shot in May by a Boston FBI agent said Saturday that he is planning to travel to the United States, hoping to get answers from authorities about a case that has been shrouded in a thick cloak of secrecy.
That's because the FBI executed the guy.
Abdulbaki Todashev said he planned to appeal to human rights organizations and to authorities in Florida and Massachusetts to conduct their own investigations into the shooting of Ibragim Todashev in his Orlando, Fla., apartment during an interrogation connected to suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
I wish him luck.
The father said he was frustrated by the bureau’s refusal to allow Florida medical examiners to release an autopsy report completed in early July. Todashev, who believes agents intentionally killed his son, said he feared the FBI would somehow tamper with the results.
“If there is a medical examiner’s report, do they have to report to the FBI?” Todashev said in a telephone interview from Moscow. “Does the FBI have the right to block the father from receiving it? What kind of conclusion will there be if the FBI is in charge of it?”
The FBI has divulged little information about what led the agent to shoot Ibragim Todashev, 27, except to allege that Todashev was shot after he initiated a violent altercation. Most descriptions of what happened have surfaced in conflicting press reports: that Todashev came at the interrogators with a blade, or with a broomstick, or that he was unarmed.
According to media reports, Todashev was about to sign a confession implicating himself and Tsarnaev in the 2011 slayings of three men in Waltham.
Except there never was a death certificate filed for one of them. Weissman, I believe, but I digress. If he was going to sign a confession why would he attack? When you read between the FBI lies, I mean, lines, the situation becomes clear. He was being threatened to sign a confession for a murder he didn't commit, and wouldn't sign. Thus he was shot to death.
Todashev had lived in Cambridge and Allston before moving to Florida, and was close to Tsarnaev, whose father is also an ethnic Chechen. Tsarnaev, 26, died after a police shoot-out days after the Marathon bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 260. His brother, Dzhokhar, 20, is facing federal charges related to the explosions.
Abdulbaki Todashev disputed the possibility that his son, who according to family members and advocates had previously been questioned numerous times by authorities, could have attacked investigators in a way that would have forced them to kill him. Ibragim, a mixed martial arts fighter, was recovering from knee surgery and incapable of quick movement, his father said, and only weighed about 159 pounds.
It's AMAZING to me how LITTLE that makes so many of my Globe reports!
“There were three people in a room and my son by himself,” he said. “The FBI and police usually select healthy, big guys. If they were in danger, they could have stopped him, wounded him, shot him in an arm or a leg, used a Taser. This is an unprecedented, premeditated, and intentional murder, because they shot him in the heart and the head.”
At a May news conference in Moscow, Todashev showed journalists pictures he said depicted his son’s body with seven bullet wounds.
Todashev acknowledged that his quest for an independent investigation faces serious obstacles. Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley and Florida’s law enforcement commissioner have separately said they would not conduct their own investigations.
The American Civil Liberties Union had urged the states to investigate, arguing that police from both states were present during the fatal shooting. The Council on American-Islamic Relations has also called for an independent inquiry, saying in a letter to the Justice Department in June: “It seems unlikely that the agents were justified in using deadly force against a single unarmed suspect.”
The FBI usually investigates shootings by its own agents, along with the Justice Department. There have been exceptions — the Michigan attorney general and the Dearborn police conducted their own inquiries into the 2009 shooting by the FBI of an imam in Detroit. Neither investigation found evidence of wrongdoing by agents.
Abdulbaki Todashev, a city official in Grozny, Russia, came to America to repatriate his son’s body in June.
This time, he said, he could not predict how long he would be in the country. But he expressed concern that something might happen on the way to Florida.
I'm concerned about the same thing, like some sort of "accident."
“I am worried that your government might accuse me of something,” he said. “So I want everyone to know, I have all my documents in order, I’m not bringing anything illegal. I just want to get to the bottom of this.”
So do we all, but with the FBI in charge we know we never will.
--more--"
Related:
FBI Fires Away in Florida
Globe Fogging Up FBI Shooting in Florida
Long Jog in the Boston Globe
Another Leg in Marathon Bombing Posts
Government Snow Job?
Last Leg of Marathon Bombing Posts
Marathon Bombing Finish Line
Over the Top(sfield)!
Isn't it all?
"States urged to look into Ibragim Todashev’s death" by Maria Sacchetti | Globe Staff, July 22, 2013
The American Civil Liberties Union is urging state officials in Massachusetts and Florida to conduct their own investigations into the fatal shooting of a Chechen man by a Boston FBI agent, saying it was unlikely the FBI investigation would fully inform the public about the death.
The FBI and the Department of Justice are conducting an internal inquiry into the May 22 shooting of Ibragim Todashev, a 27-year-old Russian national who was being questioned in his Orlando apartment by the FBI and the Massachusetts State Police about his friendship with suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev....
The civil liberties group said state officials should look into the shooting because of the secrecy surrounding the FBI’s inquiry and because state and local law enforcement, including at least one Orlando police officer, were also at the scene....
The New York Times recently discovered that the FBI and the US Justice Department’s internal investigations of shootings over the past 20 years almost always cleared agents of wrongdoing....
Same with police departments across the country after they blow some kid away.
The Massachusetts State Police and the FBI declined to comment, citing the pending investigation. An Orlando police spokesman said he believed police had no authority to investigate the FBI shooting of Todashev.
“That’s a basic civics lesson,” said Sergeant Jim Young, spokesman for the Orlando department. “Local governments do not have jurisdiction over federal governments.”
Actually, they do! Murder is a STATE CHARGE! Read your Constitution, particularly Amendments IX and X!
Todashev’s family and friends, as well as the ACLU and the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have called for an independent investigation into the slaying, in part because of the secrecy surrounding the case, in contrast to past FBI shootings.
Two months after the shooting, the FBI has not provided a full accounting of Todashev’s death. Instead, conflicting reports based on anonymous sources have appeared in news articles, saying Todashev was armed with a blade, or unarmed, or that he attacked the FBI agent with a metal pole or perhaps a broomstick.
How could that be with police and federal agents being the source of the stories? I mean, government doesn't lie, so....!!! It's not like the event should be that confusing. Only one version can be true, and it's not going to be coming from the government or ma$$ media.
The FBI has also barred the medical examiner in Florida from revealing the cause of death, and US immigration officials have detained Todashev’s former roommate and a potential witness in the case, Tatiana Gruzdeva, for immigration violations.
The only reason for that is because THEY HAVE SOMETHING to HIDE!
Typically the only investigation into fatal shootings by FBI agents is conducted by the FBI itself with the agency that oversees it, the Justice Department.
However, state and local investigations of FBI shootings have happened before, notably following the 2009 shooting of Imam Luqman Ameen Abdullah of Detroit by the FBI. The Michigan attorney general and the Dearborn police probed the imam’s death and found the shooting was justified.
See: FBI Literally Gets Away With Murder of Muslim Imam
And they have done it again!
--more--"
I'm sure the Globe will get to the bottom of it:
"After 2½ months, no clarity from FBI on Todashev death, August 03, 2013
When will the public learn the whole story about the shooting of Ibragim Todashev?
Never.
An FBI agent killed Todashev under mysterious circumstances during an interrogation in Florida on May 22, just as the 27-year-old Russian seemed to be on the verge of revealing important information about Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
Oh, now he was on the verge of revealing important information when they killed him. What an incompetent FBI agent!
After the shooting, the agency promised a full investigation. But after two and a half months, no information has been forthcoming. If the bureau won’t provide a full accounting, the other agencies involved should produce one instead....
What exactly happened at Todashev’s Orlando apartment that night has been shrouded by conflicting accounts. After days of questioning, Todashev had reportedly implicated himself and Tsarnaev in the Waltham murders. In one version of what occurred next, Todashev attacked the FBI agent with a blade; in another version, he lunged at him with a metal pole or broomstick; in a third, Todashev was unarmed. The medical examiner in Florida completed a report on Todashev’s death, but the FBI has prevented the examiner’s office from releasing its findings to the public, citing the ongoing investigation.
The killing of anyone by law enforcement is troubling, and the public deserves a full accounting of what happened.
How come this kid didn't deserve Zimmerman-type protests?
Unfortunately, the FBI, through its foot-dragging so far, and record of exonerating its own agents in shooting investigations, doesn’t inspire much confidence. Massachusetts and Florida both have an interest in the case: The shooting happened in Florida, and two Massachusetts State Police troopers were present. The ACLU has asked state officials to investigate, too; Florida authorities rejected the request, but Massachusetts should accept it.
Coakley said no.
There is no doubt that law enforcement agencies, from local police to federal officials, responded heroically amid the chaos of the bombing.
I'm tired of conventional myths and agenda-pushing bull s***, sorry. This is rank and rancid shit.
But there are still too many open questions about possible missed clues before the bombing, and possible mistakes after. Not just the killing of Todashev, but the handling of the Tsarnaev brothers, the lockdown of the city during the manhunt, and the shooting of an officer in Watertown apparently by friendly fire — all these issues warrant a full investigation. For the sake of accountability, and to learn for future incidents, law enforcement shouldn’t shy away from the complete review that the public is owed.
I'm no longer interested in officially-approved, agenda-pushing cover-up commissions, sorry.
--more--"
Related: "Let me be clear: I am not suggesting wrongdoing in Todashev’s killing. Instead, this has become a battle of white hats versus black hats."
No, that would put you in trouble with this asshole government.
"Fla. officials won’t investigate Todashev death" by Maria Sacchetti | Globe Staff, July 31, 2013
Florida’s law enforcement commissioner has refused to investigate the fatal shooting of a Chechen man in Orlando by a Boston FBI agent, days after the top prosecutor in Massachusetts also declined to look into the case.
Doesn't the Globe editorial board read their own paper?
In a letter to the American Civil Liberties Union, which urged the state officials last week to investigate the shooting, the commissioner said the FBI and the Justice Department are handling the inquiry.
“This is an active federal investigation,” Gerald M. Bailey, commissioner of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said in a brief letter to the ACLU of Florida released Wednesday. “It would be inappropriate for FDLE to intervene.”
Translation: we are scared to take on the FBI
Bailey’s refusal to investigate leaves only the FBI and its overseeing agency, the US Department of Justice, investigating the May 22 shooting of Ibragim Todashev, 27, a friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
This is the same Justice Department that ran guns to Mexican drug gangs, validated waterboarding, and spied on reporters.
The FBI has said little about the shooting, except that Todashev initiated a violent confrontation that led the FBI agent to shoot him. Advocates for Todashev however, have pointed out that he had voluntarily submitted to multiple interviews with agents.
Meaning the FBI is a bunch of f***ing liars!
Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley declined to investigate the shooting last week, saying it had happened outside her jurisdiction.
Even though a Massachusetts State cop was in the room? What was he doing out of his jurisdiction?
The ACLU chapters in Massachusetts and Florida had argued that the states should investigate because local police officials, including Massachusetts State Police troopers and an Orlando police officer, were also at the scene. The ACLU also pointed to the extreme secrecy surrounding the case and the fact that the FBI’s internal investigations of shootings in the past 20 years have almost always cleared agents.
On Wednesday ACLU officials called the state officials’ refusal to investigate the death of Todashev disappointing.
“If Massachusetts state officials have the authority to send law enforcement officers out of state to investigate crimes, then it’s unclear why state officials wouldn’t have the authority to investigate what those officers do,” said Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. “After all, the governing principle of this state isn’t ‘what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.’ ”
Howard Simon, executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said Bailey’s refusal to investigate makes it likely that Todashev’s family will have to file a lawsuit to find out how he died.
“It is extremely disappointing, given the incompatible and inconsistent explanations coming from the FBI, that the Florida Department of Law Enforcement would defer to them, allowing the only investigation to be the FBI investigating itself,” Simon said. “A person was killed at the hands of law enforcement in Florida, and our state’s government has chosen to evade their responsibility to explain to the people of Florida how that happened.”
That's not only expected, it's outrageous.
Todashev’s family and friends and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have also called for an independent inquiry into his death. The council has urged the Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division to investigate, saying in a letter to the department in June: “It seems unlikely that the agents were justified in using deadly force against a single unarmed suspect.”
Shootings by FBI agents are typically investigated only by the FBI with the Justice Department, but independent inquiries are not unprecedented. The Michigan attorney general and the Dearborn police conducted their own investigations into the 2009 shooting of a Detroit imam by the FBI. Both inquiries found no evidence of wrongdoing by the agents.
It's called a whitewash.
In contrast to past shootings involving FBI agents, however, the FBI has refused to divulge details of the Todashev case over the past two months.
Instead, conflicting reports about what led the agent to shoot Todashev have emerged in news reports. Some said that Todashev was armed with a blade. Another said he was unarmed. Still another said that Todashev attacked the agent with a pole or a broomstick.
Well, with all those government agents in the room how can there be such confusion?
Todashev was allegedly about to sign a confession implicating Tsarnaev and him in a 2011 triple slaying in Waltham, according to news reports. Tsarnaev, 26, died after a police shootout days after the Marathon bombings. His brother, Dzhokhar, is facing federal charges in the explosions.
In addition to its refusal to provide details on the Todashev case, the FBI has also barred the medical examiner from revealing the cause of death.
Immigration officials have also detained Todashev’s former roommate and a potential witness, Tatiana Gruzdeva, for immigration violations since May 16. At a hearing later that month that was not disclosed to the public, a federal immigration judge ordered the 19-year-old Gruzdeva to return to Russia by July 1 and ordered her to remain jailed until she left. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a Homeland Security agency, later extended her stay 30 days.
So she's still in jail.
--more--"
"Man seeks lawsuit in FBI killing of his son; Agent killed friend of alleged bomber" by David Filipov and Travis Andersen | Globe Staff, August 06, 2013
The father of a friend of suspected Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev said Tuesday he is seeking to file a civil suit against the FBI after a Boston agent shot and killed his son.
Abdulbaki Todashev, father of Ibragim Todashev, said by phone in a telephone interview from Florida that he was meeting with lawyers and human rights groups “to prepare a civil suit against the FBI for wrongful death.”
Ibragim Todashev, 27, was shot and killed in May in his Orlando apartment during an interrogation authorities have said was connected to Tsarnaev, who, with his brother Dzokhar, is suspected of carrying out the Marathon bombings.
The father said he did not want to wait for the results of the FBI’s internal investigation into the shooting of his son.
“At this point, I don’t care about their reasons for shooting my son,” he said. “I don’t believe them, because they committed an unprecedented act of murder, and these people need to be tried and judged.
“As for why they did this and that, I only know that this was a premeditated, intentional murder.”
The FBI has released little information about what led the agent to shoot Todashev, except to allege that the Chechen was shot after he initiated a violent altercation.
According to news reports, Todashev was about to sign a confession implicating himself and Tsarnaev in the 2011 slayings of three men in Waltham.
Todashev, who came to the United States in 2008 and received political asylum that year, had lived in Cambridge and Allston before moving to Florida and was close to Tsarnaev, whose father is also an ethnic Chechen.
Tsarnaev, 26, died in a police shootout days after the Boston Marathon bombings, which killed three people and wounded more than 260. His brother, Dzhokhar, 20, is facing federal charges related to the explosions. The brothers also allegedly killed an MIT police officer.
Abdulbaki Todashev — a city official in Grozny, the capital of the southern Russian region of Chechnya — traveled to the United States Sunday, hoping to get answers about his son’s case.
“I couldn’t leave what happened to my son unanswered,” he said Tuesday during a break from a meeting with his lawyers. “I don’t know the laws, so I am consulting with lawyers.”
Todashev said Saturday he was frustrated by the bureau’s refusal to allow Florida medical examiners to release an autopsy report completed in early July. Todashev said he feared the FBI would somehow tamper with the results.
Those fears are well-founded.
“If there is a medical examiner’s report, do they have to report to the FBI?,” Todashev said by phone from Moscow. “Does the FBI have the right to block the father from receiving it? What kind of conclusion will there be, if the FBI is in charge of it?”
Todashev disputed the possibility that his son, who, according to family members and advocates, had previously been questioned numerous times by authorities, could have attacked investigators and forced them to kill him.
Ibragim Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter, was recovering from knee surgery and was incapable of quick movement, his father said, and weighed only about 159 pounds.
“There were three people in a room and my son by himself,” he said. “The FBI and police usually select healthy, big guys. If they were in danger, they could have stopped him, wounded him, shot him in an arm or a leg, used a Taser.
“This is an unprecedented, premeditated, and intentional murder, because they shot him in the heart and the head.”
Howard Friedman, a prominent civil rights lawyer in Boston, said he was unsure if Todashev’s father would be successful in a lawsuit against the FBI, in light of the limited information the agency has released. “Without enough facts, it’s hard to know, but this certainly makes one suspicious,” Friedman said of the shooting and the official response from the federal government.
Harvey Silverglate, a criminal defense lawyer and civil rights specialist, said he doubted that Todashev’s father will get any definitive answers.
If we are all depending on the FBI for information, he and we will not.
“I don’t think that he will succeed, because I’m sure the feds will figure out a way to cover this with some kind of national security privilege like they’ve been doing with everything else” since the Sept. 11 attacks, he said.
They already have. Not talking about it, period.
In a statement, Special Agent Jason Pack, an FBI spokesman, said the bureau and the Justice Department continue to investigate the shooting.
“The FBI takes very seriously any shooting incident,” Pack said. “Both the FBI and the United States Department of Justice have an effective, time-tested process for addressing them independently to arrive at the facts. The review process is thorough and objective and conducted as expeditiously as possible under the circumstances.”
Investigate this, you lying sack of fascist shit.
--more--"
UPDATE:
"Fla. prosecutor to investigate Todashev shooting" by Maria Sacchetti | Globe Staff, August 10, 2013
Also Friday, federal immigration officials mysteriously released Todashev’s former roommate, 19-year-old Tatiana Gruzdeva, and granted her permission to stay in the United States for another year. She had been jailed since May 16 for immigration violations and was ordered to return to Russia by an immigration judge, who also reports to the Department of Justice....
What deal was she cut?
The Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, which is aiding Todashev’s father with his lawsuit, hailed the investigation and said they hoped Ashton’s review will “shed light as to why a cooperative, unarmed Florida resident was shot multiple times during interrogation by federal agents in his home.”
They have faith in the AmeriKan justice system; I do not.
Lawyers and government officials said the state and federal investigations could lead to a reprimand or even criminal charges against the agent, though the ACLU and others have pointed out that FBI shooting investigations have almost always cleared agents of wrongdoing.
The FBI declined to comment on the state prosecutor’s review, but the bureau said its own investigation is ongoing and could take months to complete.
Why so frikkin' long?
--more--"
Related:
"US House panel finds gaps in asylum oversight" by Maria Sacchetti | Globe Staff, July 24, 2013
The leader of a House panel is raising concerns that the Department of Homeland Security does not adequately track when immigrants granted asylum in the United States return to the countries they had fled, calling it a “huge, gaping hole” in national security.
But they have to collect all your communications and web search records, Americans.
US Representative Jason Chaffetz, chairman of the House subcommittee on national security, raised the issue at a subcommittee hearing last week in part because of a Boston Globe article about the asylum cases of immigrants linked to the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, including suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev....
The congressional hearing is the latest to raise questions about the federal immigration system’s role in the Marathon bombings investigation....
Which will back up the official government cover-up and divert attention from the real perpetrators and motivations.
--more--"
Going to have to scrap that immigration reform, though.
