05.06 US Lawmakers Split on Russia’s Boston Bomber Claims
WASHINGTON, June 5 (RIA Novosti) – US lawmakers who traveled to Russia last week in connection with the deadly Boston Marathon bombing investigation gave mixed opinions on the sincerity of Russian security officials who provided information about suspected bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2011, The Hill reported Wednesday.
“[Russia] wanted to help. And they got the message by implication that the FBI was not interested in examining Tamerlan,” US Rep. Steve King, a member of the delegation, told the newspaper.
Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) informed the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in a March 2011 letter that Tsarnaev, a Russian national with roots in the country’s restive North Caucasus region, was becoming radicalized.
The FSB says it never received a response from American counterparts to the warning, the Washington Post reported last weekend, and FBI chief Robert Mueller testified before the US Congress last month that federal authorities investigated the Russian tip-off but determined Tsarnaev was not a threat.
The FSB letter included personal information about Tsarnaev, including his cellphone number and his mother’s Skype handle, and asked US authorities to alert Russia if he planned to travel to Russia, the Post reported.
Tsarnaev was killed in a shoot-out with police in the days following the April 15 attack.
The FBI says it did respond to the Russian warning but says that it then never received a reply from Moscow to that response, an assertion backed by another member of the US delegation, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, The Hill said.
Rohrabacher told the newspaper that the FBI did not have information that could have prevented the attack, which killed three people and wounded more than 260.
