Parents of Boston bombing suspect share phone call with son - CNN.com
Parents of Boston bombing suspect share phone call with son - CNN.com
Page 1 of 1 Jun 05, 2013 06:58:28AM MDT
Parents of Boston bombing suspect share phone call with son
By CNN Staff
updated 7:30 AM EDT, Wed June 5, 2013 CNN.com
(CNN) – Inside their dark, barren home in Dagestan, Zubeidat and Anzor Tsarnaev finally hear the voice they’ve
been longing to hear for weeks.
It’s the voice of their only surviving son, Dzhokhar. To the outside world, he’s suspected of helping to launch a
gruesome attack at the Boston Marathon that killed three people and maimed dozens more.
But to the Tsarnaevs, Dzhokhar is an innocent teen who has been victimized by the American justice system.
In an exclusive interview with CNN affiliate ITN, Zubeidat Tsarnaev plays a recorded phone call with her
19-year-old son. It’s their first conversation since Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was shot and arrested in April.
Zubeidat Tsarnaev asks her son whether he’s in pain.
Video shows suspects at gym days before attack
“No, of course not. I’m already eating and have been for a long time,” Dzhokhar responds in the call from a prison
hospital recorded last week. “They are giving me rice and chicken now. Everything’s fine.”
Dzhokhar’s apparent calm surprises his mother.
“I felt like he would scream, you know, like, ‘What’s going on?’” Zubeidat Tsarnaev tells ITN’s Channel 4. “Instead,
he was just calming me down.”
The parents insist their sons, Dzhokhar and 26-year-old Tamerlan, weren’t responsible for the Boston bombings on
April 15.
Dzhokhar: Boston bombing was payback for hits on Muslims
“It is terrible what happened, you know, but I know that my kids did not do it,” Zubeidat Tsarnaev says.
After a wild police chase, Tamerlan Tsarnaev died in a shootout with police. He was also run over by his fleeing
brother.
The family says Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was supposed to visit Dagestan the same week as the bombing.
“We were waiting for you on the 18th at home,” Anzor Tsarnaev tells his son in the phone call. “Not in our worst
nightmares did we imagine this.”
Former Chechen rebel: ‘I have nothing to do with’ bombings
The father says he doesn’t think his son understands what has happened to him.
“I understand. I’m just someone in shock because justice has vanished,” Anzor Tsarnaev says. “There is no justice.
It’s impossible to understand what happened.”
“We’re going to be together,” he says.
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