Centre "E": Tamerlan Tsarnaev connected with Makhmud Nidal and William Plotnikov, members of underground

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a suspected initiator of the terror act in Boston, came to the attention of Russian power agencies in early 2011 in connection with the detention in Dagestan of Canadian citizen William Plotnikov, and in 2012, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev was seen together with Makhmud Nidal, an alleged agent of the armed underground. This was stated by a source at the Dagestan's Centre for Combating Extremism.

In 2012, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev visited the republic, staff members of the Centre for Combating Extremism registered him and opened a card of operational records, the "Novaya Gazeta" reports with reference to a source in the Centre for Combating Extremism.

The source has reported that in April 2012, the Centre's agents repeatedly saw Tamerlan Tsarnaev together with 18-year-old Makhmud Nidal, who at that time "had been under surveillance" for about a year.

According to the source's information, the investigation revealed that the young man's name was Tamerlan Tsarnaev. It was not revealed whether he had visited the prohibited websites or contacted any suspicious person. However, according to the source's version, the archives revealed that in early 2011, the FSB has requested the FBI to present materials about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in connection with the detention in Dagestan of Canadian citizen William Plotnikov (he was killed in the special operation held on July 14, 2012 in the Kayakent District of Dagestan, note of the "Caucasian Knot").

The source has stated that during the interrogations, William Plotnikov gave a list of names of natives of North Caucasus living in Europe and the US, and the list included Tamerlan Tsarnaev "from Dagestan", with whom William Plotnikov actively communicated in one of the most popular Islamic social networks the World Association of Muslim Youth (WAMY), which Tamerlan visited from his account on the "YouTube". The source claims at that time, FSB officers also requested the information from foreign secret services and received no response.

Let us remind you that earlier, Abdurashid Magomedov, the head of the Republic's Ministry of Internal Affairs (MIA), denied the information that Tamerlan Tsarnaev contacted militants in Dagestan.

According to the information of Michael McCaul, a representative of the FBI, the version that Tsarnaev brothers did not act within an organized grouping, was presented too early. "It could be a conspiracy. It has been too early to say that there was no foreign connection, since the investigation is still in its starting point," Michael McCaul said.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev suspected of committing the terror act in Boston began to profess radical Islam in 2009, the RIA "Novosti" quotes his ex-girlfriend Nadine Ascencao as saying, with reference to the newspaper "The Sun".