BOSTON — A former brother-in-law of Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev testified Wednesday from Kazakhstan about a conservative Muslim convert who steered Tsarnaev’s older brother toward a stricter version of Islam.
Elmirza Khozhugov, the former husband of Tsarnaev’s sister, Ailina Tsarnaeva, testified on live video for the defense from Almaty, the largest city in Kazakhstan. The Tsarnaev family — ethnic Chechens — lived in the Dagestan region of Russia and in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan before moving to the U.S. when Dzhokhar was 8.
A federal jury will soon decide whether Dzhokhar, now 21, should be executed or sentenced to life in prison for the 2013 bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260.
The defense is trying to show that Dzhokhar was heavily influenced by his radicalized 26-year-old brother, Tamerlan, whom they call the mastermind of the plot. Tamerlan was killed days after the bombing during a getaway attempt.
Khozhugov said the Muslim convert named Misha often visited the Tsarnaev apartment in Cambridge, Mass., to talk to Tamerlan about Islam.
He said Tamerlan told him he quit boxing, stopped taking acting classes and stopped playing and listening to music after Misha said those things were not appropriate in Islam.
Khozhugov also described the close-knit relationship between the brothers. He said Tamerlan often couldn’t find the words to express how much he loved Dzhokhar and how he was willing to do anything to help Dzhokhar succeed.
Dzhokhar, in return, adored Tamerlan, Khozhugov said.
“He listened to Tamerlan. He went along any time Tamerlan would say, ‘Let’s go do this and that,”‘ Khozhugov said.
Tsarnaev’s lawyers told the jury that the oldest brother in Chechen families traditionally takes on the role of decision-maker if the father is incapacitated. A psychiatrist testified Tuesday that he diagnosed Anzor Tsarnaev with post-traumatic stress disorder in 2003 and that he also suffered from a variety of physical ailments.
“There is a saying we have in Chechnya. … ‘In a family with seven sons, it is better to be a dog than the younger son,”‘ Khozhugov said.
