Zubeidat K. Tsarnaeva, the mother of Boston bombing suspects Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, told television networks that she believes her sons were set up.
"I am 100 percent sure that this is a setup," she told Russia Today. "My two sons are really innocent and neither of them have ever talked about what they said now."
She added later, however, that her older son, Tamerlan, got involved in "religious politics" five years ago. And she appeared to suggest that she had been contacted by the FBI about Tamerlan prior to the marathon bombing attacks.
"He was controlled by the FBI for five years," she said."They knew what my son was doing, they knew what sites on the Internet he was going [to], they used to come...and talk to me...they were telling me that he was a serious leader and they were afraid of him."
"So how could this happen?"
"It's impossible for both of them to do those things," she added. "If there was anyone who would know, it would be me, the mother."
Her remarks echo those of other relatives of the suspects, including their father and their aunt, both of whom insisted Friday that the two men were innocent and had been set up by the police.
Watch her full interview with Russia Today below: