Relatives of Tsarnaev brothers deny their commitment to radical Islam

The brothers Johar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, suspected of organizing a terror act in Boston on April 15 that killed three people, were not the adherents of radical Islam, said their mother Zubeydat Tsarnaeva, and their uncle Ruslan Tsarnaev and their aunt Maret Tsarnaeva.

According to US law enforcers, the 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed on April 19 in a shootout with police. Today, his younger brother, the 19-year-old Johar, was detained and hospitalized with heavy wounds.

Zubeydat Tsarnaeva, who lives in Makhachkala, said that the brothers' father worked for law enforcement bodies. According to her story, Johar and Tamerlan were shadowed by US intelligence agencies.

"My sons were set up. My son was monitored for five years. He was 'shadowed' – they knew what websites he was visiting; they knew where he went and whom he met; they treated him as a radical, as he visited the websites, which they consider extremist," this Tsarnaeva's statement sounds in the video report, posted today on the website of the "Russia Today" website.

Ruslan Tsarnaev, who lives in Montgomery Village in the State of Maryland, told reporters on April 19 that the brothers have nothing to do with Chechnya and never visited it. "Johar was born in Dagestan," the Voice of America quotes him as saying.

The family of Johar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev came to Dagestan from Kyrgyzstan in 2001 as refugees; and four Tsarnaev children went to School No. 1 in Makhachkala. In March 2002, the whole family went to the United States, the Dagestani newspaper "Chernovik" writes with reference to the school director Emirmagomed Daudov.