IP addresses are NOT logged in this forum so there's no point asking. Please note that this forum is full of homophobes, racists, lunatics, schizophrenics & absolute nut jobs with a smattering of geniuses, Chinese chauvinists, Moderate Muslims and last but not least a couple of "know-it-alls" constantly sprouting their dubious wisdom. If you believe that content generated by unsavory characters might cause you offense PLEASE LEAVE NOW! Sammyboy Admin and Staff are not responsible for your hurt feelings should you choose to read any of the content here. The OTHER forum is HERE so please stop asking.
By Steve Leblanc And Bob Salsberg, AAP Updated May 4, 2013, 5:52 pm
The death certificate of Tamerlan Tsarnaev revealed he died from gunshot wounds and trauma injuries.
A funeral home director is scrambling to find a cemetery that would bury a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombings, ignoring protesters gathered outside his business and saying everybody deserves a dignified burial service no matter the circumstances of his or her death.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died from "gunshot wounds of torso and extremities" and blunt trauma to his head and torso, said a Worcester funeral home owner, Peter Stefan.
He has Tsarnaev's body and on Friday read details from his death certificate.
The certificate lists the time of Tsarnaev's death as 1.35am on April 19, four days after the deadly bombing, Stefan said.
Tsarnaev died after a gunfight with authorities who had launched a massive manhunt for him and his brother, ethnic Chechens from Russia who came to the United States about a decade ago.
Police have said he ran out of ammunition before his younger brother dragged his body under a vehicle while fleeing.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev's body was released by the state medical examiner on Thursday. It initially was taken to a North Attleborough funeral home, where it was greeted by about 20 protesters, before being taken to Stefan's Graham Putnam and Mahoney Funeral Parlors, which is familiar with Muslim services.
"My problem here is trying to find a gravesite. A lot of people don't want to do it. They don't want to be involved with this," said Stefan, who said dozens of protesters gathered outside his funeral home, upset with his decision to handle the service.
"I keep bringing up the point of Lee Harvey Oswald, Timothy McVeigh or Ted Bundy. Somebody had to do those too."
Meanwhile, two US officials said Dzhokhar Tsarnaev told interrogators that he and his brother initially considered setting off their bombs on July 4.
Boston police said they planned to review security procedures for the Independence Day Boston Pops concert and fireworks display, which draws a crowd of more than 500,000 annually and is broadcast to a national TV audience.
Authorities plan to look at security procedures for large events held in other cities, notably the massive New Year's Eve celebration held each year in New York City's Times Square, Massachusetts state police spokesman David Procopio said.
Governor Deval Patrick said everything possible will be done to assure a safe event.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was found hiding in a tarp-covered boat in a backyard in Watertown, a Boston suburb, faces a charge of using a weapon of mass destruction to kill.
Three of his college classmates were arrested on Wednesday for allegedly helping the alleged bomber by removing a laptop and backpack from his dormitory room before the FBI searched it.
The April 15 bombing, which used pressure cookers packed with explosives, nails, ball bearings and metal shards, killed three people and injured more than 260 others near the marathon's finish line.
The brothers decided to carry out the attack before Independence Day when they finished assembling the bombs, the surviving suspect told interrogators after he was arrested.
Investigators believe some of the explosives used in the attack were assembled in Tamerlan Tsarnaev's home, though there may have been some assembly elsewhere.
It does not appear that the brothers ever had big, definitive plans, an official said.
The brothers' mother insists the allegations against them are lies.
Lawyers for a teenager charged with lying to investigators after the Boston Marathon bombings are asking a federal judge to release him from jail, saying he had nothing to do with the deadly bombings and isn't a flight risk.
Robel Phillipos, 19, of Cambridge, faces a detention hearing on Monday in US District Court.
Defence attorneys said in court documents filed Saturday that authorities' claim that Phillipos gave them conflicting accounts is 'refutable.'
'This case is about a frightened and confused 19-year-old who was subjected to intense questioning and interrogation, without the benefit of counsel, and in the context of one of the worst attacks against the nation,' lawyers Derege Demissie and Susan Church wrote.
'The weight of the federal government under such circumstances can have a devastatingly crushing effect on the ability of an adolescent to withstand the enormous pressure and respond rationally.'
Phillipos was charged last week with lying to investigators about visiting bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's college dorm room on April 18, three days after the bombings.
Two other friends were charged with conspiring to obstruct justice by taking a backpack with fireworks and a laptop from Tsarnaev's dorm room.
Phillipos was at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, where all four men had studied, by coincidence on April 18, his lawyers said in the court papers. He had taken a leave of absence in December and hadn't spoken to Tsarnaev or the other two men for more than two months, they said.
'By sheer coincidence and bad luck, he was invited to attend a seminar on campus on April 18,' the night the three allegedly went to Tsarnaev's dorm room, according to the documents. 'As such, he did not have much to offer the authorities regarding the investigation of the suspect.'
To support their request for bail, the lawyers filed affidavits from friends and relatives of Phillipos who described him as a considerate, thoughtful and friendly young man, the son of a single mother who emigrated to the United States from Ethiopia.
Phillipos faces a maximum of eight years behind bars and a $250,000 fine if convicted.
NRA chief: Boston residents were vulnerable without guns
ANDREA LORENZ, REUTERS
FIRST POSTED: SATURDAY, MAY 04, 2013 07:39 PM EDT | UPDATED: SATURDAY, MAY 04, 2013 07:47 PM EDT
Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President and CEO of the NRA, speaks at the NRA-ILA Leadership Forum at the George R. Brown Convention Center, the site for the National Rifle Association's annual meeting in Houston, Texas May 3, 2013. It is time to stop demonizing all law-abiding gun owners because of violent acts committed by a few criminals, National Rifle Association leaders and political allies said on Friday at its first convention since the Connecticut school massacre. Organizers expect some 70,000 attendees at the 142nd NRA Annual Meetings & Exhibits in Houston, which began on Friday and continues through Sunday. REUTERS/Adrees Latif
HOUSTON - Heavy-handed gun laws and a culture disapproving of gun ownership put citizens in a vulnerable position during the door-to-door search for Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev last month, NRA Chief Executive Wayne LaPierre said on Saturday.
“How many Bostonians wished they had a gun two weeks ago?” LaPierre asked in a speech at the National Rifle Association’s annual convention in Houston.
“Residents were imprisoned behind the locked doors of their own home, a terrorist with bombs and guns just outside,” LaPierre said, referring to the police search in the Boston suburb of Watertown.
Reiterating a theme from earlier speakers, he said law-abiding gun owners were under attack through government moves to control gun ownership, despite the need for self-protection.
“Lying in wait right now is a terrorist, a deranged school shooter, a kidnapper, a rapist, a murderer, waiting and planning and plotting in every community across our country, lying in wait right now,” LaPierre said.
“No amount of political schemes, congressional legislation, presidential commissions or media round tables will ever change that inevitable reality.”
The convention is the first national gathering of members since last year’s high-profile shooting sprees at a theater in Aurora, Colorado, and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut.
It also comes less than a month after the U.S. Senate voted down a measure to expand background checks for gun buyers, a step favored by U.S. President Barack Obama and most Americans.
An online Reuters/Ipsos poll released in January showed that 86 percent of those surveyed favored expanded background checks of all gun buyers.
A CBS News/New York Times poll released on Wednesday showed that 88 percent support background checks for all gun buyers and that 59 percent are disappointed or angry about the Senate vote.
Several demonstrations in support of stricter gun control took place across the street from the convention center.
MEMBERSHIP JUMPS
Speakers lambasted Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein and New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, among others.
LaPierre announced that the NRA had reached 5 million members, increasing by 1 million since December after the Newtown shooting.
NRA First Vice President Jim Porter told members that the background-check proposal would have made criminals out of honest gun owners.
“Selling a gun to a good neighbor, just like you would do today, becomes a felony, and the government takes your guns,” he said.
Porter, who is expected to be voted in as the NRA’s next president by board members on Monday, highlighted the role of the rank-and-file in the fierce political battle over guns.
“That family, our family encompasses tens of millions of Americans. We are the vanguard of those citizens. The gun lobby - that’s you,” he said. “With our liberties at stake, we trump the billionaires, the media and the politicians every time.”
’THAT’S A BABY’
On Friday and Saturday, a group gathered outside the center to read aloud the names of people who had died from gun violence in the United States since the Sandy Hook massacre in December.
Austin resident Heather Ross said on Saturday morning that she had been there since 7 a.m. on Friday.
“It’s really intense to read these names because a few of them on there are zero or 1 years old, and that’s hard. That’s a baby,” Ross said.
“Then when you read one that’s your age, or your sibling’s age, or you read all the names (of people who died) on your mother’s birthday - that’s very impactful and you go through it a little bit slower.”
A group called Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America gathered signatures and messages on large signs set to be delivered to U.S. Senators Ted Cruz and John Cornyn of Texas.
They held a photo session on Saturday with some former Harlem Globetrotters and former NBA players and broadcaster Steve “Snapper” Jones to bring attention to children who were shot and killed.
Another group, Texans for Smart Gun Regulation, organized a protest in front of the convention center Saturday afternoon.
Occupy the NRA, organized by Aaron Black, an unofficial spokesman for last year’s Occupy Wall Street protesters, held a news conference on Saturday morning to “say yes to guns and no to the NRA.”
“I’m tired of watching our democracy being hijacked by these guys,” Black said. “It’s time for people to stand in front of this issue and not just send email petitions around.”
NRA organizers expected 70,000 people at the three-day convention, which ends on Sunday. Saturday’s events also included a sold-out “Stand Up and Fight Rally” featuring conservative TV and radio personality Glenn Beck.
Teenager accused of lying in Boston bomb case can be released
BOSTON | Mon May 6, 2013 11:04am EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. prosecutors have agreed that a teenager suspected of lying to FBI agents in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation can be released under strict conditions, according to a court filing on Monday.
Prosecutors and the defense team for Robel Phillipos plan to ask U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler to grant the 19-year-old suspect a pretrial release under strict conditions.
(Reporting by Tim McLaughlin; Editing by Eric Beech)
No rest for the wicked: Cemeteries reject Boston bomber's body
By SELIM ALGAR
Last Updated: 2:02 AM, May 6, 2013
Posted: 1:23 AM, May 6, 2013
Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s uncle arrived at a Worcester, Mass., funeral home yesterday to prepare his nephew’s corpse for a Muslim burial.
But the home’s director, Peter Stefan, said he has still been unable to find a single cemetery willing to offer a plot to bury the terrorist Tsarnaev, 26.
“I’m tired of dealing with these cowards,” Stefan said yesterday of area cemetery directors, after receiving Tsarnaev’s uncle, Ruslan Tsarni. “Let’s separate the sins from the sinners.”
Stefan blasted officials from Cambridge, where Tsarnaev lived, for refusing to provide a final resting place. But the town stood firm in the wake of the deadly April 15 attacks carried out with his brother, Dzokhar, 19.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left note describing marathon bombing as retribution for US wars in Muslim countries, US TV reports.
Last Modified: 17 May 2013 10:06
Bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was found hiding in a boat days after the attack [Reuters]
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the accused in Boston Marathon bombing, who was found hiding in a boat days after the blasts, left a handwritten message describing the attack as retribution for US wars in Muslim countries, an American news channel has reported.
The CBS News report on Thursday cited anonymous sources and said that Tsarnaev used a pen to write the message on an interior wall of the boat, where police found him bleeding from gunshot wounds four days after the April 15 bombing.
The note summed up with the idea that "when you attack one Muslim, you attack all Muslims," CBS News reported.
Al Jazeera is unable to independently verify this report and Reuters news agency said that an FBI spokeswoman in Boston did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
The CBS report said Tsarnaev, 19, described his older brother and fellow suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who died in a gunbattle with police, as "a martyr".
"Basically, the note says the bombings were retribution for the US crimes against Muslims in places like Iraq and Afghanistan and that the victims of the Boston bombing were 'collateral damage,' the same way innocent victims have been collateral damage in US wars around the world," said CBS News reporter John Miller, who is a former spokesman for the FBI.
The bombings at the finish line of the world-famous marathon killed three people and injured 264 others. The FBI identified the ethnic Chechen brothers as suspects from video and pictures at the scene.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was arrested in Watertown, Massachusetts, on April 19 after a daylong manhunt and lockdown of much of the Boston area.
He is being held in a prison hospital west of Boston and faces charges that could carry the death penalty if
he is convicted.
FBI agent fatally shoots man with suspected ties to Boston Marathon bomber: authorities
By MITCHEL MADDUX
Last Updated: 10:15 AM, May 22, 2013
Posted: 7:50 AM, May 22, 2013
An FBI agent this morning fatally shot a Florida man with suspected ties to Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, authorities said.
Ibragim Todashev, 27, was being interviewed at his Orlando apartment about his connections to Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev when he attacked the agent, law enforcement sources told The Post.
An FBI post-shooting review team has already been sent to Orlando, and Todashev’s Windhover apartment complex on Peregrine Avenue, those sources said.
Todashev was originally cooperative but later turned on the agent.
"We are currently responding to a shooting incident involving an FBI special agent,” FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier said.
Ibragim Todashev
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, left, and Tamerlan Tsarnaev
“The incident occurred in Orlando, Florida. The agent encountered the suspect while conducting official duties. The suspect is deceased. We do not have any further details at this time. We expect to have more information later this morning."
One of the suspect's friends, Khusn Taramiv, told Orlando TV station WESH that Todashev was being probed because both Tamerlan and Todashev were MMA fighters.
Taramiv said he was also interviewed by the FBI at the Windhover Condominiums, according to the report.
WESH reports that Todashev was busted earlier this month for aggravated battery.
"[The FBI] took me and my friend, the suspect that got killed. They were talking to us, both of us, right? And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they’re going to bring him back. They never brought him back," Taramiv said.
"He [Todashev] felt inside he was going to get shot. I told him, 'Everything is going to be fine, don't worry about it.' He said, 'I have a really bad feeling.' "
Taramiv insisted he and Todashev had no connection to the April 15 bombings at the Boston Marathon finish line.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a shootout with police less than four days after the marathon blasts that killed three spectators. The dead terrorist’s little brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was nabbed later that day and has been charged with using weapons of mass destruction.
"The FBI kept asking, 'What's the connection?' But there is no connection... no connection," Taramiv told MyFoxOrlando.
Taramiv said the victim had planned to return to Chechnya but had canceled his tickets.
"Me and him and my friends, we knew this was going to happen. That's why he wanted to leave the country," Taramiv said. "But he canceled the tickets. The FBI's been pushing him, 'Don't leave, don't leave.' So he decided to stay.”
Taramiv said he found about the shooting after returning back to his apartment: "I was completely shocked. I still can’t believe it, you know what I mean?"
U.S. congressmen in Russia on Boston bombing fact-finding mission
Boston marathon bombing suspects Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his brother Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, 19. / AP/THE LOWELL SUN/JULIA MALAKIE, VKONTAKTE
MOSCOW | Wed May 29, 2013 3:13pm EDT
(Reuters) - U.S. congressmen will meet security officials in Moscow this week to find out whether the FBI could have done more with Russian intelligence on the Boston bombing suspect to prevent the attack, one of the lawmakers said on Wednesday.
U.S. President Barack Obama's administration and the intelligence community face scrutiny over criticism they failed to see the danger from Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his younger brother Dzhokhar - the prime suspects in the twin bombings that killed three people and injured over 170 at the Boston Marathon.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, who was killed in a shootout with police, spent six months last year in Dagestan, a southern Russian province where Moscow is battling an Islamist insurgency.
U.S. Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican leading the fact-finding mission, said it wanted to find out whether the FBI acted strongly enough on Russian information that Tsarnaev was a potential threat.
"One of the things we want to find out is whether or not the FBI followed through on all of the information that was given to them," Rohrabacher said.
He said he and fellow congressmen Steve King, Paul Cook, Steve Cohen and William Keating were interested in how Tsarnaev's time in Dagestan may have radicalized him.
Although Washington and Moscow have vowed cooperate closely on counter-terrorism, both sides have accused each other of withholding information in the run-up to the bombing.
U.S. officials have said Russian security services asked the FBI about Tamerlan in early 2011 out of concern he had embraced radical Islam and would travel to Russia to join insurgents.
FBI agents interviewed him in Massachusetts in 2011 but said they found no serious reason for alarm. U.S. officials say Russia's FSB security services later failed to respond to the FBI's requests for more information about him.
Tsarnaev flew to Russia the following year on January 12.
(Reporting by Catherine Koppel; Editing by Alissa de Carbonnel and Pravin Char)
Inspire, a propaganda magazine for al Qaeda, had previously praised 9/11 and instructed readers on how to make bombs.
6:58pm Friday 31 May 2013
The Boston Marathon attacks last April killed three people
The latest issue of Inspire, a propaganda magazine for Islamist terrorism, has celebrated the Boston bombings.
The al Qaeda magazine also apparently warned America that more attacks may be on the way.
It said US "security has lapsed" and "attacks against you are taking a course that nobody can control", news reports said.
"Save yourselves if you care for your own skin."
The publication calls the April attacks, which killed three people and injured more than 260, the "blessed Boston bombings".
Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a police shooting
"Your security is in the hands of the fools among you who rule you with oppression and aggression. Know that oppression and aggression come back upon the heads of those who use them," it said, according to the New York Post.
The English-language magazine had previously run articles celebrating 9/11 and instructing readers on how to make bombs.
The Boston bombing suspects, Tamerlan and Dzhokar Tsarnaev, reportedly learned to make pressure-cooker bombs from the magazine.
The younger Tsarnaev also said he felt inspired by the online sermons of an al Qaeda propagandist who used to edit the magazine, reports said.
Dzhokar Tsarnaev is in police custody
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a police shooting after the bombings, while his younger brother was injured but survived. He is in custody.
His mother said in an interview with the AP news agency that the suspect, 19, was now walking.
The magazine also includes a one-page essay on the brutal killing of Drummer Lee Rigby in London last week.
