MOSCOW, April 10 (RIA Novosti) – A new US government report largely exonerates the FBI for its failure in thwarting the deadly bombing at the Boston marathon last year, instead laying the blame on Russian law enforcement agencies, the New York Times reported Thursday.
According to the report by the US Office of Intelligence Community and the Department of Homeland Security, Russian authorities withheld vital information on Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev following FBI requests for information two years prior to the attack.
The FBI filed requests with Russian officials for additional information about the suspect in 2011. In response, Russia warned the United States that Tsarnaev was a follower of radical Islam. The inquiry was soon scrapped as US officials concluded he had no links to terrorism, posing a far greater threat to Russia than the US.
The new report, however, claims Russia declined several additional requests by the FBI. In particular, it blames Russia for withholding information about an intercepted telephone conversation between Tsarnaev and his mother in which they discussed Islamic jihad.
The report also blames federal laws that prevented FBI agents from using surveillance tools like wiretapping in investigations conducted on suspects.
“Had they known what the Russians knew they probably would have been able to do more under our investigative guidelines, but would they have uncovered the plot? That’s very hard to say,” a senior US official told the New York Times.
Russian law enforcement agencies earlier said such claims were groundless, as in March 2011 the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) sent a letter to the FBI containing details about Tsarnaev. Russia insists the FBI failed to answer the letter, whereas the FBI says they sent a response but never received additional information about the suspect.
In April 2013, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that Russian security services lacked any operative information on the suspect that they could have shared with their American counterparts, as the Tsarnaev brothers did not live in Russia.
Three people were killed and over 250 wounded after two bombs went off near the finish line of the Boston Marathon on April 15 last year. The Tsarnaev brothers were quickly identified as suspects in the blasts, following the release of surveillance camera footage by the FBI.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed in a gunfight with police in the days following the bomb attack. His younger brother, Dzhokhar, tried to flee the city, but was wounded and later arrested and is now awaiting trial in federal court, scheduled to begin in November.
