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Father of Boston bomb suspects plans U.S. trip to bury son

by Reuters
Thursday, 25 April 2013 13:18 GMT

* Parents deny sons carried out Boston bombings

* Father to go to U.S. for elder son's funeral

* Mother criticises police for killing elder son (Adds wife's comments, details)

By Alissa de Carbonnel

MAKHACHKALA, Russia, April 25 (Reuters) - The father of two men suspected of carrying out the Boston bombings said on Thursday he would travel from Russia to the United States to bury his elder son.

Anzor Tsarnaev and former wife Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, sitting side by side in the southern Russian city of Makhachkala, denied their sons had planted the bombs at the Boston marathon which killed three people and wounded 264, saying they had been framed.

Banging the table in front of him, Anzor said: "I am going to the United States. I want to say that I am going there to see my son, to bury the older one. I don't have any bad intentions. I don't plan to blow up anything.

"I am not angry at anyone. I want to go find out the truth," said Anzor, who took off his sunglasses only when photographers asked him to.

He said he would go as soon as possible but that he had not yet bought a plane ticket.

Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, her face pinched under her black head scarf, criticised the U.S. police for shooting dead Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, four days after the bombing.

The other son Dzhokhar, 19, was wounded and captured after a manhunt. He is in a fair condition in hospital and is charged with two crimes that carry a possible death penalty.

"I wanted to scream to the whole world, 'What did you do?' What have you done with my son? He was alive. Why did you need to kill him? Why didn't you send him to Guantanamo or whatever? Why? Why? Why did they have to kill him? They got him alive, he was in their hands," she shouted, her voice cracking.

"It is some kind of show, spectacle," she said in accented English.

She recounted how she had called Tamerlan after the bombing and he had told her not to worry.

"There is a lot that is unexplained," she said, adding that she was considering giving up her U.S. citizenship.

The Tsarnaev family lived in Makhachkala, the capital of the restive Dagestan region in Russia's volatile North aucasus, more than a decade ago before emigrating to the United States.

Anzor and Zubeidat later returned to Russia and their two sons remained in the United States, although Tamerlan came to Dagestan during a six-month stay in Russia last year. (Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Writing by Elizabeth Piper; Editing by Timothy Heritage and Alistair Lyon)

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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