Bombing suspect welfare: Reports on Wednesday indicated that Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s family was on welfare at one point.
The 26-year-old was getting welfare until last year, when he became ineligible.
The Massachusetts Office of Health and Human Services confirmed that he, his wife, and their daughter got welfare benefits.
The Boston Herald reported that he was receiving welfare when he was delving into Islamic extremism, raising questions as to whether he was getting taxpayer’s money to fund his radicalization.
Relatives told the paper that he started to radicalize himself in 2008 or 2009 when he met a man called “Misha.” During that time, he looked at jihadist and conspiracy theory websites.
He and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, his 19-year-old brother, also got welfare as children via their parents when they lived in the United States.
Neither got welfare during the time of the bombing, which left three people dead and 170 people injured.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was killed during a police shootout late last Thursday.
In 2011, the FBI was contacted by Russian intelligence services over Tsarnaev, warning the agency that he was suspected of being a threat.
“The request stated that it was based on information that he had changed drastically since 2010 as he prepared to leave the United States for travel to the country’s region to join unspecified underground groups,” said the agency, according to the paper
It was also recently reported that his wife was working as many as 80 hours per week while he stayed at home.
“She is doing everything she can to assist with the investigation,” Amato DeLuca, lawyer for Katherine Russell Tsarnaeva, told CBS News. “The report of involvement by her husband and brother-in-law came as an absolute shock to them all.”
New York Police Commissioner Ray Kelly on Wednesday said that the two suspects were planning on going to New York for a “party,” reported CNN.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who was in Manhattan in late 2012, “said something about a party or having a party,” Kelly said.
While in a hospital room, Dzhokhar told investigators that he and his brother were self-radicalized jihadists and said that his brother masterminded the bombing attack.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
