WASHINGTON, April 11 (RIA Novosti) – The American Civil Liberties Union has launched a lawsuit against the FBI and the US Attorney’s office to obtain documents on the Massachusetts Joint Terrorism Task Force, involved in the Boston Marathon bombing inquiry.
The complaint, filed Thursday in a US District Court in Boston, also requested information about Ibragim Todashev, allegedly linked to the late Tamerlan Tsarnaev, believed to have carried out the Boston Marathon bombing.
The ACLU submitted similar requests with both the FBI and US Attorney’s office in December last year, seeking more information on the Todashev case. The requests were denied as the FBI concluded the release would interfere with the ongoing inquiry into Todashev’s death.
During an interrogation about his relationship with Tsarnaev, Todashev allegedly confessed the pair were involved in a triple homicide in Waltham in 2011.
The investigation did little to explain whether Todashev was somehow related to the Boston bombings.
Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter, was shot dead while being questioned by the FBI and Massachusetts State Police at his home in Florida last May. The FBI agent who shot Todashev was later cleared of any criminal wrongdoing after a Florida prosecutor and the Justice Department ruled separately he acted in self-defense.
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.
