Boston bombing suspects' father swears off revenge

Makhachkala, April 26 (IANS/RIA Novosti) The father of the two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings has said he will not seek to avenge the death of his son Tamerlan, and that he plans to move his American daughter-in-law and grandchild to Russia to be near him.

"I will not try to avenge anybody; I simply want to get my son back and bury him here," said Anzor Tsarnaev, a resident of Russia's volatile southern republic of Dagestan who previously lived in the US with his family.

"I do not hold any religious or extremist views," he said at a news conference in the region's capital Makhachkala.

Anzor Tsarnaev said he wanted to bring Tamerlan's wife and child over to Russia.

The older Tsarnaev brother, Tamerlan, 26, who had an American wife and young son, died in a shootout with police. Later his younger brother, Dzhokhar, 19, was captured after a manhunt that shut down much of Boston and its surrounding areas. He remains in a Boston hospital where he is being treated for injuries to his head, neck, legs and hand.

Dzhokhar has been charged with using a weapon of mass destruction, which could carry the death penalty.

Anzor Tsarnaev has denied media reports quoting Tamerlan's aunt as saying that her nephew's body had already been handed over to his relatives in the US.

"My son's body has not been handed over. We don't even know where it is," Tsarnaev told RIA Novosti.

He said he was going to fly to the US Thursday night. "I'm packing now," he said.

He said Zubeidat Tsarnaeva, the mother of the two suspects, has no plans yet to return to the US.

Tsarnaeva, who is currently in Dagestan with her husband, said she is considering giving up her US citizenship over the incident.

She has repeatedly stated that her sons were innocent and that they were framed.

A police source had previously told RIA Novosti that the suspects' parents had agreed to visit the US to assist in the ongoing investigation, after a team from the US Embassy in Moscow spoke with them in Dagestan.

However, a clerk at the district court in Natick, Massachusetts, during a phone conversation with RIA Novosti, said Tsarnaeva could be arrested if she returns to the US.

According to the clerk, court documents show Tsarnaeva was arrested for shoplifting last year at a Lord & Taylor department store in Natick after security workers called police.

She was accused of stealing $1,600 worth of clothes from the store.

Tsarnaeva was arrested June 13, 2012 and arraigned the following day on one count of larceny and two counts of malicious damage to property. Court documents show she had several pre-trial dates in 2012, but did not show up.

Tsarnaeva dismissed the theft charges against her as "nonsense".

Her sons are suspected of having planted the homemade bombs that exploded at the Boston Marathon finish line April 15, killing three people and injuring more than 200.

--IANS/RIA Novosti

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