The mother of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings is charging that her sons had been set up.
“It’s impossible, impossible for them to, for both of them to do such things, so I am really, really, really telling you this is a set-up,” said Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, speaking on CNN on Friday afternoon.
She is described as the mother of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who have been identified as the two suspects in the bloody Monday bombings at the annual marathon. Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with authorities, reports said, while Boston is under lockdown as law enforcement engages in a manhunt for Dzhokhar, the younger brother, who is still thought to be at large.
(PHOTOS: Police converge on Boston suburbs)
“My youngest one was raised actually from eight years, he was raised in America,” she said. “And my oldest son, he is like, really proper raised in our house. Nobody talked about terrorism.”
She said that the FBI was aware of Tamerlan.
“And my son Tamerlan really got involved in the religion, you know, religious politics five years ago, so he… never, never told me that he would be like on the side of jihad,” Tsarnaeva continued. “He was counseled by FBI for three, five years. They knew what my son was doing. They knew what actions and what sites on the Internet he was going. How could this happen? How could they — they were following every step of him and they’re telling today this is a terrorist act.”
(Also on POLITICO: Portrait of suspects takes shape)
Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), also appearing on CNN, bashed Tsarnaeva’s accusations of framing.
“Again, it must be traumatic for the mother and the father but, again, to be saying the FBI set them up or the FBI controlled them, is just absolutely wrong,” said King, the former chairman of the House’s Homeland Security Committee. “It’s really offensive. Here’s a country that gave them sanctuary and asylum, the United States, and to turn against the country like this, [it’s] bad enough what their sons did, but for the parents to attack the country, to me, is wrong.”
(Also on POLITICO: Father: Boston suspect an 'angel')
Breanna Edwards contributed to this report.
Editor's Note: The accusation of the FBI having some relationship to the mother's son is troubling, but sadly is not unwarranted, given the FBI's well documented and questionable tactics for fighting terrorism, detailed below. The second article here was written by a former FBI agent, so despite the public being largely unaware of this, the information itself is not speculative. All of these stories have been verified by the FBI itself, the New York Times, former FBI agents and other experts and mainstream media.
Just to be clear. We are NOT saying this mother's word is proof of ANYTHING, and there is no evidence to back up her claim. We reported (via Politico) what she and the father said. We hope people can take a refrained approach to dealing with this information and not jump to conclusions.
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