The Boston Globe has published a long investigation into the lives of Boston Marathon bombers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, as well as the rest of their immediate family. Among the piece’s new revelations is the suggestion that the Tsarnaev brothers’ father, Anzor, was less than truthful when he applied for asylum in the United States. While Anzor claimed his family was persecuted in Kyrgyzstan, experts say the area was not particularly inhospitable to Chechens when they left. People who knew the Tsarnaevs in Kyrgyzstan and in Massachusetts believe the real reason for their departure was Anzor’s trouble with the local mafia, members of which once kidnapped him, beat him severely, and beheaded his dog. Whatever his reason for coming to America, Anzor appears to have been troubled, suffering from “searing headaches” and screaming loudly enough in his sleep to wake his Cambridge neighbors.
Additionally, several associates of the family told the Globe that Tamerlan, who died after a shootout with the police days after the April bombing, appeared to suffer from serious mental illness. His mother, Zubeidat, allegedly told a friend that her son heard “angry voices,” though she never sought treatment for him. An older man whom Tamerlan befriended in Boston, Don Larking, also said that the 26-year-old confided that, “Someone is in my brain, telling me stuff to do” and said several times that there were “two people” inside of him. Read the entire thing here.
