On 10 year anniversary of 9/11, did the Tsarnaev brothers decide to make a clean braek in their lives and return to the path of their religion? Disgust with the American way of life and their personal failures which led Tamerlan to claim: “I have no friends here in America.” Uncle Tsarni split with his nephews three years ago because they became too fanatic about Islam.
Slain Boston Bomb Suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev Eyed in Jewish Triple Murder
(The Forward) – Police in a Boston suburb are investigating whether slain Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev was involved in the unsolved murders of his close friend and two other men, one of whom was a Brandeis University graduate and the other a devout Jew.
Tsarnaev, who was killed in a shootout with police, was a close friend of Brendan Mess, who was found murdered in an apartment in Waltham, Mass. on Sept. 12, 2011, along with Erik Weissman and Raphael Teken.
Weissman was a devoted member of his synagogue, according to WCVB in Boston and Teken had majored in history at predominantly Jewish Brandeis.
The triple murder was originally considered to be drug related because the men’s bodies were found covered with marijuana. The crime was particularly brutal and all three victims’ thoats were slashed.
A Boston Globe profile of the Tsarnaev brothers first made the possible connection to the triple murder.
Did Weissman get Dzhokhar hooked on drugs?
According to police reports, Weissman was arrested in 2008 charge of possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. Larry Aaronson, who taught Weissman at Cambridge Rindge & Latin School, told the Globe after the murders that Weissman had an unusually diverse group of friends.
One year later, still few answers in Waltham triple homicide
Are we perhaps not overreacting just a bit to an April 2009 published report that included:
No context. No further explanation. Said at a time when Tam had at least one and perhaps two girlfriends. Have yet to hear when Tam and Brendan Mess met and became friends.
Not saying that there isn’t a connection to the 2011 murders — OTOH it’s simply too dramatic not to speculate on when there isn’t a connection.
True it’s pure speculative, but in the whole affair the past weeks there were crazy inconsistencies. For me it is more of a part that fits the puzzle. Once you have killed, the second time you have even less scruples and become a cold blooded murderer keeping his cool as Jahar tweeted. My gut feeling says Tamerlan was the initiator and did radicalize before and during his visit to Dagestan in 2012 as the FSB accurately predicted. This would fit a motive why Dzhokhar felt indebted to his brother and agree to the deadly attack on the Boston Marathon. Just to walk away and continue business as usual is quite pervide.
On the other hand, it’s not I who speculates but the circle of friends where the Tsarnaev brothers were engaged. The Jewish blog The Forward is pretty levelheaded IMO and I read quite excellent articles and reviews of political issues.
Indeed, what would be Tamerlan’s motive for killing those three men? My impression is that the murders were done execution-style; also, one of them was a drug dealer.
I don’t think there’s much of a connection between killing at close quarters people you know and committing a terrorist bombing. Also, if Tamerlan was such a “natural born killer”, why didn’t he kill the guy whose SUV they carjacked?
I honestly don’t see what a Muslim militant thinks he’d accomplish by killing three men in an apartment on the anniversary of 9/11. And if that was an act of jihad, why kill people you know?
To me, this sounds like part of the usual propaganda portraying Muslim militants as depraved, mindless killers, who are so deranged that their motives are totally inscrutable. According to officials, the Tsarnaev’s motivation was clear: the bombing was a reprisal for the U.S. wars against Afghanistan and Iraq.
Also, I don’t like the implicit inference:
pray 5 times a day → slit your (Jewish) friends’ throats
The current NY Times story says
Boston Suspect Cites Islamic Extremist Beliefs as Motive (apparently finding the destruction of Muslim countries by Western powers is an “Islamic extremist belief”), while CBS says Suspects were aspiring jihadists.
Neither article mentions that Dzhokhar said that the bombing was a reprisal for the U.S. wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. It was exactly the same with the media’s coverage of 9/11: they hate us for incomprehensible reasons (no point in looking at bin Laden’s clearly stated grievances against the U.S.).
From published 2011 autopsy report:
The first time “throats slit” wrt this triple homicide appeared in the press this week. And we know why that would be.
The eldest victim (age 37), Rafi Tegen, was a stoner — no mention of any job(s) or girlfriends or boyfriends.
Then there is this from the Boston Globe
Nothing in this suggests that Tam would have been involved. (However, wouldn’t eliminate Brendan Mess’ brother.)
Is it out of the realm of possibility that there had been a recent and irrevocable rift in the friendship between Tam and his “best friend” when he spoke? As he became more religious and rejected smoking and drinking, Brendan Mess wasn’t exactly following his lead.