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As attention focuses on Tamerlan Tsarnaev's 6-month visit to Russia's restive Caucasus region, an aunt said that – contrary to previous reports – he did not come to Dagestan in order to visit his father.
Tsarnaev left the United States in January 2012 and arrived in Dagestan around March, Patimat Suleimanova said. His father, Anzor Tsarnaev, only arrived in the republic in May.
"He came to become acquainted with [Dagestan]," Suleimanova said. "He would sit at home and pray. He was learning to read the Koran. He saw relatives, friends."
US officials are investigating whether Tsarnaev built links with Dagestani rebels, who are fighting a heavy police state in order to build an Islamist caliphate along Russia's southern flank, during his time in the republic. Dagestan's main rebel group denied any links with the attack. Unnamed Russian security officials have told Russian media that they found mention of the Tsarnaevs.
Yet the FBI questioned Tsarnaev in 2011, on request from a foreign government, now revealed to have been Russia. He was denied a request for US citizenship submitted in September 2012 because of the questioning.
Tsarnaev's younger brother Dzhokhar, currently in custody, was planning to visit the republic in May, she said. The family briefly lived in the restive region from September 2001 to March 2002, before emigrating to the United States.
The family, ethnically Chechen, tried to move to Chechnya twice, Suleimanova said, and both times were forced to flee because of war.
Russia ruthlessly battled a separatist movement in Chechnya from 1994 to 1996 and again from 1999. Remnants of the movement, now Islamist in nature remain.
The family's inherited home in Chechnya was destroyed in the second war, Suleimanova said. "Everyone has suffered in the wars – it's very painful," she said. "Who doesn't keep it close to them?" Both Tsarnaev brothers evidenced deep ties to the republic via their social media accounts. Tsarnaev visited Chechnya for just two days during his 6-month stay in the region, she said.
Suleimanova said Tsarnaev seemed happy during his time in Dagestan.
"He became even warmer after he took Islam," she said. "He was happy, life-loving."
She said Tsarnaev, who had lived in the US for a decade before visiting the republic, "was an American but also one of our own". "At first I even thought he looked funny – they're Americans in their style."
Yet she hinted that times had become tough for the brothers after their father left the United States for Dagestan, followed a couple of months later by their mother, Zuneidat. Anzor Tsarnaev had bought a ticket for the United States for 16 April, she said, saying that the brothers had stumbled upon money problems. "He would send money from here when he could," she said.
Suleimanova echoed the words of the Tsarnaevs' parents in questioning her nephews' involvement in the attacks. "A man who takes Islam cannot do this," Suleimanova said. "They are not terrorists. I have no doubt that they were set up."
Suleimanova, speaking in the living room of her flat in Makhachkala, one wall covered with photographs of Dagestani theologians, thinkers and imams, 30 of which had been killed in the republic's campaign of terror, cried when thinking about her nephews.
Anzor, her husband's younger brother, was planning to fly to the United States, she said, in order to attempt to check on Dzhokhar, she said.
"We want to save at least one son," she said. "At first I was so happy that he had lived. But now I don't know if it's better for him to live or die," she said.
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