Sunday, May 5, 2013

Report: Radical Islamic files found on Boston bomber's wife's computer

(NY Post) Radical Islamic materials and an al Qaeda magazine were found on the computer of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s widow — and there was explosive residue throughout their house, it was revealed yesterday.

The files found on Katherine Russell’s hard drive are part of an investigation into whether the woman — who claimed to be in the dark on her husband’s terrorist activities — was aware of his plan to set off the two bombs, The Washington Post reported.

It wasn’t clear whether the files belonged to Russell, 24, or her husband, 26.

The explosive residue was found on the kitchen sink and table and in the bathtub at their home in Cambridge, Mass., a source told CNN.

The surviving bomber, Tsarnaev’s brother, Dzhokhar, told investigators they built the bombs in Tamerlan’s basement.

Officials said female DNA and fingerprints on a piece of pressure cooker found in the explosive debris did not match Russell’s.

Authorities yesterday were also searching a wooded area of Dartmouth, Mass., as part of the investigation, while Tsarnaev family members made burial arrangements for Tamerlan.

His death certificate lists “gunshot wounds of torso and extremities” and “blunt trauma to head and torso” as the cause of death, according to Peter Stefan, owner of the funeral home in Worcester that has Tamerlan’s body.

Stefan said he doesn’t have an issue with burying the bombing suspect.

“Go back to the time when Lee Harvey Oswald died. Somebody buried him,” he told CBS Boston.

“Timothy McVeigh, somebody handled that. Jeffery Dahmer, somebody handled that. Ted Bundy, somebody handled that. I mean, we bury the dead.

“Can I control what the circumstances around their death? No. Can I pick and choose? No.”

Also yesterday, posters in support of Dzhokhar sprung up on walls in Chechnya, the BBC reported.

The posters declare the terror suspect “not guilty” and ask for donations to pay his medical and legal bills. Pro-Tsarnaev leaflets have also spotted in the Kyrgyzstan capital of Bishkek.