Report: Man Killed by FBI Implicated Himself, Tsarnaev in 2011 Homicide

A man shot by the FBI in Orlando was a friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and had implicated himself and Tsarnaev in a 2011 unsolved triple homicide near Boston before he died early Wednesday morning, CBS News reports.

The man, a Chechen identified as Ibragim Todashev, implicated himself and Tsarnaev to authorities in the 2011 killings in Waltham, Mass., while under questioning Wednesday at Todashev's apartment in Orlando,

A confrontation began and the FBI agent shot and killed Todashev.

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A friend of the dead man identified him to local media as 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, who had previously lived in Boston and knew Tsarnaev, the older of the two brothers suspected of planting two bombs at the marathon on April 15. Three people were killed and 264 injured in the attacks.

The shooting occurred in an apartment complex near the Universal Studios theme park, where the FBI and members of other law enforcement agencies including the Massachusetts State Police were interviewing the man about the marathon bombing.

"A violent confrontation was initiated by the individual," the FBI said. A special agent, it said, "acting on the imminent threat posed by the individual, responded with deadly force. The individual was killed and the special agent was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries."

Authorities were in Orlando after stepping up their investigation into possible connections between Tsarnaev, who died in a shootout with police, and the unsolved 2011 triple homicide in the Boston suburb that investigators believe was drug related.

NBC News reported on Wednesday that the man killed in Florida had confessed to the FBI that he had played a role in the 2011 murders. A U.S. government official close to the investigation had no immediate comment.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar are suspected of setting off two pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon finish line. Dzhokhar is being held at a prison hospital west of Boston awaiting trial on charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty.

'THEY JUST KNEW EACH OTHER'

The friend of the man who was shot Wednesday, Khusen Taramov, said Todashev knew Tsarnaev because both were mixed martial-arts fighters but had no connection to the bombing.

"Back when he used to live in Boston, right, they used to hang out," Taramov told Central Florida News 13. "He met them few times 'cause he was MMA fighter the other guy was boxer, right. They just knew each other, that's it."

Taramov said Todashev and others in the complex, some of whom were of Chechen origin, had been questioned several times by law enforcement agents since the day the Tsarnaev brothers were identified as the bombing suspects.

Law enforcement officials have also interviewed another person of Chechen origin, ex-rebel Musa Khadzhimuratov, at his home in New Hampshire, the New York Times reported last week. Khadzhimuratov had also had contact with Tsarnaev.

MURDER INVESTIGATION

Law enforcement agencies are also looking for clues linking Tsarnaev to a Sept. 12, 2011, triple murder in Waltham, Massachusetts, where three men including a close friend of Tsarnaev were found stabbed in the neck in an apartment.

News reports said that marijuana was strewn over their bodies.

The possibility that Tsarnaev was connected to the Waltham murders is "being looked at seriously," said Republican Rep. Peter King, chairman of the counter-terrorism and intelligence subcommittee of the House Homeland Security Committee. Other U.S. officials confirmed the investigation did involve Tsarnaev's possible role.

A source said, however, that while Tsarnaev's connection to the Waltham killings was actively under investigation, at this point there was no evidence to suggest the murders had any connection to the Tsarnaev brothers' possible motives or actions in allegedly carrying out the marathon bombings.

A spokeswoman for the office of the District Attorney of Middlesex County, Massachusetts, where the murders occurred, said that her office had been conducting an open and active homicide investigation in the case since 2011, and that local and state police investigators were involved. She declined to comment on possible involvement of federal agencies.

Before the Boston bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev had been listed on multiple U.S. government databases, including a master list of potential terrorism suspects. U.S. authorities also were asked twice by Russia to investigate Tsarnaev for possible involvement with Islamic militants, U.S. officials have said.

Also, on Wednesday afternoon, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder was scheduled to meet in Washington with Vladimir Kolokoltsev, Russia's interior minister. The meeting's agenda was unclear, but U.S. investigators are anxious to learn what Russian authorities knew about the Tsarnaevs and about what Tamerlan Tsarnaev did during a six-month trip to Russia last year.

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