An Orlando man being investigated over ties to Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was shot and killed during an encounter with an FBI agent late Tuesday, WESH Orlando reports.
WESH has more:
A friend of the suspect, Khusn Taramiv, said his friend, 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, was being investigated as part of the Boston bombings and knew bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev because both were MMA fighters.
Taramiv claims he and Todashev were interviewed by the FBI for nearly three hours on Tuesday.
“(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.
The FBI said Todashev was not suspected in the Boston Marathon bombing, but was being questioned since he had recent contact with one of the bombers. Speaking to NBC News, officials said Todashev was cooperative at first, and later confessed to being involved in a brutal Boston-area slaying two years ago.
As he was about to sign a written statement based on this confession, officials said Todashev attacked an agent with a knife, and the agent shot and killed him, NBC News reports.
FBI sources speaking to WESH said that Todashev, who is from Chechnya, "flipped out" during an interview.
"The agent, along with other law enforcement personnel, were interviewing an individual in connection with the Boston Marathon bombing investigation when a violent confrontation was initiated by the subject," FBI spokesman Dave Couvertier told Fox Newsin a statement. "During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries. As this incident is under review, we have no further details at this time."
John Miller, a former FBI assistant director now with CBS News, said Todashev was “someone (the agency was) looking at in connection with Tamerlan (Tsarnaev), based on contacts [he] had.”
From CBS Local:
On CBS This Morning, Miller said the man was being questioned by FBI agents because he had been in contact with Tamerlan Tsarnaev prior to the bombing, had been to Boston to visit Tsarnaev and had a trip planned to Chechnya.
USA Today reports the shooting took place at a condominium in Orlando. An FBI post-shooting incident-review team has been dispatched to the scene to investigate the incident further, CBS News reports.
SEE ALSO: REPORT: Orlando Man Shot By FBI Confessed To Involvement In Boston Triple Murder >
SEE ALSO: BOSTON MASSACRE: The Full Story Of How Two Deranged Young Men Terrorized An American City >
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