Orlando, Florida, May 22 (EFE).- A Chechen immigrant was fatally shot by authorities who were at his Central Florida home early Wednesday to question him in connection with the Boston Marathon bombings, officials said.
Ibragim Todashev, 27, became violent during the session with an FBI agent, two Massachusetts state troopers and other law enforcement officers, the FBI said in a statement.
After initially saying the agent killed Todashev, the FBI avoided assigning responsibility in subsequent comments on the incident.
The FBI agent suffered injuries in the confrontation and was taken to hospital, the bureau said.
The dead man was a mixed martial arts fighter who had met Boston attack suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the context of sports and once lived in Massachusetts.
The 27-year-old Tamerlan died in an April 19 shootout with police outside Boston. His brother and fellow suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was captured alive and is in custody.
Three people were killed and more than 260 injured in the April 15 blasts at the finish line of the Boston Marathon.
A friend of Todashev, Khusn Taramiv, told the media that for several weeks both had been under constant watch by FBI agents, until the night they were interrogated for close to three hours.
The authorities "were talking to us, both of us, right?" Taramiv told WESH-TV in Orlando. "And they said they need him for a little more, for a couple more hours, and I left, and they told me they're going to bring him back. They never brought him back."
The area continued to be cordoned off and a team of investigators has been sent from Washington to determine the circumstances surrounding Todashev's death.
Police records obtained by Efe show that Todashev was arrested on May 4 after being in a fight at the parking lot of the Orlando shopping center.
Todashev was released on a $3,500 bail.
