Mom on watch list
Mom on watch list, The mother of the two young men alleged to have plotted and carried out the Boston Marathon bombing was placed on the same classified watch list as her elder son, according to U.S. officials, raising further questions about her role in his apparent radicalization.
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva and her son Tamerlan were placed at the same time in late 2011 on the Terror Identities Datamart Environment database, a low-level watch list that contains the names of more than 500,000 people flagged by multiple U.S. security agencies. It wasn't clear why she was placed on the list.
Her presence on the list is one more thing Ms. Tsarnaeva shared with Tamerlan, who is believed to have masterminded the marathon bombing.
Earlier in the week, after insisting in a two-hour interview with The Wall Street Journal that Tamerlan had been framed, Ms. Tsarnaeva said strife in her family had arisen from its ultimately unsuccessful attempt to adjust to American life. "We never should have come to America," she said. "We tried, but I wouldn't do it again."
Ms. Tsarnaeva said in the interview she often surfed many of the same Internet sites as her son, as the two exchanged ideas on religion and adopted more orthodox Islamic practices. She denied that she or her son adopted any extremist ideologies, however.
Now back in Russia living with her husband, Anzor, she said she doesn't know when she will be able come to the U.S. to see her remaining son, Dzhokhar, who was moved Friday from a Boston hospital to a prison medical facility. While the Tsarnaevs had talked about traveling this week to Boston, Ms. Tsarnaeva now says that U.S. officials who came to see them in Makhachkala said they would not for now have the opportunity to see Dzhokhar. She also says she would like to stay closer to relatives. Mr. Tsarnaev has said he will go to the U.S., but he hasn't said when.
Ms. Tsarnaeva also faces a warrant for her arrest in the U.S. after failing to show up for an October court appearance on charges she shoplifted seven dresses at a suburban Boston department store, according to court records. Ms. Tsarnaeva is charged with one count of larceny and two counts of vandalizing property because several of the dresses were damaged in the alleged June 30, 2012, incident at a Lord & Taylor in Natick, Mass., according to court records.
Authorities are still pursuing the case and would arrest her if given the opportunity, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office said Friday.
Ms. Tsarnaeva said in the interview that her shoplifting charge was simply the result of a misunderstanding. She had been suffering from a bout of depression, she said, and when she was feeling bad she would try to give her children a lot of gifts "so that they had everything."
She said she had bought a lot of clothes for her daughters online. She went to Lord & Taylor to return some of the items, but had no receipt. She said she had had another shoplifting incident, and the case was resolved when she agreed to see a psychologist. Daniel J. Cappetta, Ms. Tsarnaeva's attorney, decline to comment on the case.
A female crime-prevention officer at the Natick Lord & Taylor told police that she had seen Ms. Tsarnaeva through a drape over the fitting room door using scissors to remove security tags from the dresses and stuff the dresses into a bag she had been carrying, according to court records.
The security guard told police she also saw Ms. Tsarnaeva cut small holes into two other items of clothing and attached security tags she had removed onto the damaged clothing, before returning them to a clothing rack in the store, court records said.
According to the guard, Ms. Tsarnaeva then walked past cash registers and out of the store without paying for seven dresses she had concealed in her bag, court records said. Department-store security officers detained her outside, the records said. The stolen dresses were valued at $1,624; five valued at $1,016 were damaged as a result of Ms. Tsarnaeva removing the tags, the records said.
Ms. Tsarnaeva was released on $200 bail. She made three court appearances, but failed to show up for her last appearance on Oct. 25, 2012.
Ms. Tsarnaeva and her husband split about two years ago, but are back together now, fixing up the first-floor apartment they acquired a few years ago.
Both Tsarnaevs said they were struggling with bouts of depression. A neighbor said that Zubeidat's depression appeared especially tragic because "she was a typical woman from a Muslim family who was powerless and struggling to keep her family together."
Religion was a bond that Zubeidat thought could hold the family together, and keep her son from going astray. She said that around 2007 or 2008 Tamerlan was partying and drinking and smoking marijuana. She could tell, she said, because in the evening he used to come in at night and kiss her on the lips. But that changed, and she said he would instead go straight to the bathroom to brush his teeth. "I would ask him 'why don't you kiss me? Are you afraid of something?'," she said.
Neighbors say that Tamerlan's death seems only to have accentuated Ms. Tsarnaeva's devotion to Tamerlan. She continually speaks of him as "my Tamerlan," they said. In the interview, she talked far less about Dzhokhar.
"He was really nice," she said of Tamerlan at a press conference earlier this week. "He never rejected anyone American just because they are Americans."
Zubeidat Tsarnaeva and her son Tamerlan were placed at the same time in late 2011 on the Terror Identities Datamart Environment database, a low-level watch list that contains the names of more than 500,000 people flagged by multiple U.S. security agencies. It wasn't clear why she was placed on the list.
Her presence on the list is one more thing Ms. Tsarnaeva shared with Tamerlan, who is believed to have masterminded the marathon bombing.
Earlier in the week, after insisting in a two-hour interview with The Wall Street Journal that Tamerlan had been framed, Ms. Tsarnaeva said strife in her family had arisen from its ultimately unsuccessful attempt to adjust to American life. "We never should have come to America," she said. "We tried, but I wouldn't do it again."
Ms. Tsarnaeva said in the interview she often surfed many of the same Internet sites as her son, as the two exchanged ideas on religion and adopted more orthodox Islamic practices. She denied that she or her son adopted any extremist ideologies, however.
Now back in Russia living with her husband, Anzor, she said she doesn't know when she will be able come to the U.S. to see her remaining son, Dzhokhar, who was moved Friday from a Boston hospital to a prison medical facility. While the Tsarnaevs had talked about traveling this week to Boston, Ms. Tsarnaeva now says that U.S. officials who came to see them in Makhachkala said they would not for now have the opportunity to see Dzhokhar. She also says she would like to stay closer to relatives. Mr. Tsarnaev has said he will go to the U.S., but he hasn't said when.
Ms. Tsarnaeva also faces a warrant for her arrest in the U.S. after failing to show up for an October court appearance on charges she shoplifted seven dresses at a suburban Boston department store, according to court records. Ms. Tsarnaeva is charged with one count of larceny and two counts of vandalizing property because several of the dresses were damaged in the alleged June 30, 2012, incident at a Lord & Taylor in Natick, Mass., according to court records.
Authorities are still pursuing the case and would arrest her if given the opportunity, a spokeswoman for the Middlesex County District Attorney's Office said Friday.
Ms. Tsarnaeva said in the interview that her shoplifting charge was simply the result of a misunderstanding. She had been suffering from a bout of depression, she said, and when she was feeling bad she would try to give her children a lot of gifts "so that they had everything."
She said she had bought a lot of clothes for her daughters online. She went to Lord & Taylor to return some of the items, but had no receipt. She said she had had another shoplifting incident, and the case was resolved when she agreed to see a psychologist. Daniel J. Cappetta, Ms. Tsarnaeva's attorney, decline to comment on the case.
A female crime-prevention officer at the Natick Lord & Taylor told police that she had seen Ms. Tsarnaeva through a drape over the fitting room door using scissors to remove security tags from the dresses and stuff the dresses into a bag she had been carrying, according to court records.
The security guard told police she also saw Ms. Tsarnaeva cut small holes into two other items of clothing and attached security tags she had removed onto the damaged clothing, before returning them to a clothing rack in the store, court records said.
According to the guard, Ms. Tsarnaeva then walked past cash registers and out of the store without paying for seven dresses she had concealed in her bag, court records said. Department-store security officers detained her outside, the records said. The stolen dresses were valued at $1,624; five valued at $1,016 were damaged as a result of Ms. Tsarnaeva removing the tags, the records said.
Ms. Tsarnaeva was released on $200 bail. She made three court appearances, but failed to show up for her last appearance on Oct. 25, 2012.
Ms. Tsarnaeva and her husband split about two years ago, but are back together now, fixing up the first-floor apartment they acquired a few years ago.
Both Tsarnaevs said they were struggling with bouts of depression. A neighbor said that Zubeidat's depression appeared especially tragic because "she was a typical woman from a Muslim family who was powerless and struggling to keep her family together."
Religion was a bond that Zubeidat thought could hold the family together, and keep her son from going astray. She said that around 2007 or 2008 Tamerlan was partying and drinking and smoking marijuana. She could tell, she said, because in the evening he used to come in at night and kiss her on the lips. But that changed, and she said he would instead go straight to the bathroom to brush his teeth. "I would ask him 'why don't you kiss me? Are you afraid of something?'," she said.
Neighbors say that Tamerlan's death seems only to have accentuated Ms. Tsarnaeva's devotion to Tamerlan. She continually speaks of him as "my Tamerlan," they said. In the interview, she talked far less about Dzhokhar.
"He was really nice," she said of Tamerlan at a press conference earlier this week. "He never rejected anyone American just because they are Americans."
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