AFP/Boston
With the hospitalised Boston bombing suspect unable to speak, attention shifted yesterday to his dead brother, who may have been radicalised or even trained in the Caucasus last year.
US lawmakers questioned why Tamerlan Tsarnaev, killed in a shootout, did not raise more red flags despite being questioned at the request of the Russian government in 2011 and spending six months in the volatile region last year.
“Clearly something happened in my judgment in that six-month timeframe... I’m very concerned,” House Homeland Security Committee chairman Michael McCaul told CNN’s State-of-the-Union programme.
“I personally believe that this man received training when he was over there and he radicalised from 2010 to the present.”
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham and Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer also expressed concern about Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was 26.
“It’s people like this that you don’t want to let out of your sight, and this was a mistake,” Graham said about the oldest of the two brothers, ethnic Chechens who had been living in the US for a decade.
“I don’t know if our laws are insufficient or the FBI failed, but we’re at war with radical Islamists and we need to up our game.”
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was under heavy guard in hospital, reportedly unable to speak because of a throat wound suffered in the violent chase that shut down Boston for most of Friday.
The FBI would only say that he was in “serious condition”, while Boston Mayor Thomas Menino told ABC television : “We don’t know if we’ll ever be able to question the individual.”
The Tsarnaev brothers are the main suspects in the double bomb attack on the marathon that took three people’s lives and wounded dozens. A policeman was killed and another was wounded in a shootout with the suspects.
Counterterrorism agents trained in interrogating “high-value” detainees were waiting to question Dzhokhar - who is being treated at the same hospital as many of the marathon bombing victims - a law enforcement official told AFP.
Officials have invoked a “public safety” legal exception that will allow them to question Tsarnaev without reading him his rights to remain silent and to consult a lawyer.
Graham and fellow Republican Senator John McCain have led calls for the teenager to be declared an “enemy combatant”, which would give him the same status as Guantanamo “war on terror” detainees.
But Graham has since nuanced his comments, stressing that Tsarnaev should only be considered an enemy combatant for interrogation purposes, and should receive a civilian trial in federal courts, rather than in a military tribunal like foreign suspects with that designation.
Critics have insisted that because Tsarnaev is a naturalised US citizen and authorities have found no ties between him and terror groups so far, he should be granted a criminal civilian trial.
The Tsarnaev family came to the US from the former Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan around 2002. Dzhokhar became a US citizen in 2012, while his older brother’s application was reportedly held up.
Tamerlan began posting militant Islamist videos on social media sites in recent years, and travelled to Dagestan, which borders Chechnya, in 2012. Both Russian regions host separatist rebel groups.
People participating in an interfaith memorial service at a makeshift memorial for Boston bombing victims at the intersection of Boylston Street and Berkley Street in the city yesterday.