Suspect 'A True Angel,' Says Father of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston Bombing Fugitive
The father of the boys suspected in the Boston bombings has openly expressed his grief over the situation, insisting that his younger, fugitive son is actually an "angel."
"My son is a true angel," Anzor Tsarnaev, the father of two brothers suspected in the Boston bombings, told a media outlet on Friday. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, have been named as suspects in the bombing that took place on Monday, injuring 170 people and taking the lives of three, including that of an 8-year-old Martin Richard.
"My son is a true angel," Tsarnaev told the Associated Press in a phone interview from the southern Russian republic of Dagestan. "We expected him to come on holidays here."
Tsarnaev described his youngest as "an intelligent boy" and could not believe that either of his children would commit such a horrific crime.
"They were set up, they were set up!" the father said. "I saw it on television; they killed my older son Tamerlan."
The suspects' uncle, Ruslan Tsarni of Montgomery Village, Md., also spoke with members of the Press and said he had no idea that members of his family had been involved in the attack.
"I've been following [the story] from day one but never ever imagined that somehow the children of my brother would be associated with that," Tsarni said to media members from the front of his home. "It is an atrocity. We are devastated. We're shocked. We've not been in touch with that family for a number of years. They never lived here. I never knew, and even if I would have guessed something, I would have submitted them myself."
When asked what might have provoked the attack, he said: "Being losers, hatred to those who were able to settle themselves, these are the only reasons I can imagine. Anything else, anything else to do with religion is a fraud. It's a fake. We're Muslims. We're ethnic Chechyans."