Tsarnaev lawyers seek interviews with brother’s associate

BOSTON – Appeals lawyers for convicted Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev are asking for the recordings of interviews with a suspect in a triple-homicide in Massachusetts who was shot in 2013 during a confrontation with police.

The attorneys for the death-row inmate, whose argument for sparing Tsarnaev’s life is due next month before the 1st U.S. Court of Appeals, filed the motion for the sealed recordings of Ibragim Todashev on Tuesday without spelling out their reasons for asking.

Todashev knew Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s older brother, Tamerlan, because they trained at the same Boston-area mixed martial arts gym.

He allegedly told police about a month after the marathon bombing that he and Tamerlan Tsarnaev had killed three men in Waltham in 2011, a crime that remains unsolved.

Todashev was fatally shot by an FBI agent in Orlando, Florida, after allegedly charging at the agent with a metal broomstick. He was being questioned by the FBI, Massachusetts State Police, and local law enforcement about his relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev. Todashev’s family in a lawsuit says he was simply trying to leave his apartment and law enforcement overreacted.

The defence at Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s 2015 trial wanted to introduce the recordings to show that he was manipulated by his brother, but a federal judge denied the request.

Neither defence attorneys nor prosecutors immediately responded to requests for comment.

The younger Tsarnaev was sentenced to death for setting off the two bombs at the marathon finish line in April 2013 that killed three spectators. He is currently housed at the federal Supermax prison in Florence, Colorado.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died during a confrontation with police in Watertown days after the bombings.