FBI agent 'justified' in shooting Boston bomb suspect's friend, says Florida prosecutor
Charges over FBI agent's killing of Ibragim Todashev in Florida ruled out
An FBI agent who shot dead a friend of one of the alleged Boston Marathon bombers during an interrogation will not face criminal prosecution, a Florida prosecutor said yesterday.
The actions of the unnamed agent who killed Ibragim Todashev, a former martial arts fighter and associate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, were "justified in self-defence and in defence of another", Jeffrey Ashton, the state attorney for Orange and Osceola counties, said in a letter to FBI director James Comey.
"Therefore, a complete review of the investigation leads me to conclude that criminal charges against the special agent of the FBI are not warranted, and that the Office of the State Attorney's review of this incident is complete," Ashton concluded.
An FBI internal review of the incident had already cleared the agent of wrongdoing.
Todashev, a 27-year-old Chechen immigrant who was living in Orlando, died in May last year after he was shot seven times by the FBI agent during an interrogation by several law enforcement officials. One of the bullets appears to have entered through the top of his head.
He was being questioned as part of the inquiry into Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the two brothers suspected of being behind the April 15 attack on the Boston Marathon. Officials have claimed in subsequent reports that when he died, Todashev was about to sign a confession implicating himself and Tsarnaev in a triple homicide in the US state of Massachusetts in September 2011.
In a statement after the killing, the FBI said the agent had been interviewing Todashev in Florida with two Massachusetts state troopers and "other law enforcement personnel" when "a violent confrontation was initiated" by Todashev. "During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life-threatening injuries."
Reports based on leaks claimed variously that Todashev lunged at the FBI agent with a knife, a length of pipe, a metal pole or a broomstick.
Todashev's father, Abdul- Baki, accused the FBI of executing his son. "These just aren't FBI agents. They're bandits," he said.
