Report to shed light on what really took place when FBI shot Ibragim Todashev

[soundsgreat]

Source: Guardian


The FBI’s story, doled out through anonymous leaks, changed several times in the weeks that followed. First, Todashev, who had voluntarily endured hours of questioning, lunged at the FBI agent with a knife, or even a sword. Then it was a length of pipe. Other accounts had him knocking over a table. At least one account held that Todashev was unarmed. The version that currently stands is that Todashev wielded a metal pole – or, perhaps, a broomstick.

Little is known about that mysterious pole-slash-broomstick: its heft, its dimensions, its use. Yet it is likely to be a major difference between vindication and damnation of the FBI’s handling of the case. A Florida prosecutor examining the case is expected to publish the results of an long-awaited investigation into Todashev’s death on Tuesday morning.

Unknowns accumulate in the Todashev shooting. Two Florida detectives reportedly aided the FBI interrogation, and their role during the shooting remains unclear. Florida’s autopsy report, available since July, was barred from release by the FBI. The bureau’s months of silence over the case have compounded the questions it faces.

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Revealing what Todashev held in his hands on the last night of his life won’t answer all the questions posed by his death. Nor will it tell the full story behind the Boston Marathon attacks, the last best chance for which now comes from the Dzhokhar Tsarnaev trial scheduled for November. But there’s no closure to a disturbing episode for the FBI without a thorough reckoning with what happened in that Orlando apartment.

Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/24/fbi-agent-ibragim-todashev-boston-marathon-report

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There's already an independent investigation going on, with interesting witnesses:

But an exclusive interview last week by this journalist of Deputy Chief Medical Examiner Gary Utz, who personally conducted the Todashev autopsy, confirms that Todashev was shot seven times by FBI bullets, four times in the torso, two times in the left arm (he was right-handed), and once in the top of the head, slightly towards the back of the head. A significant bruise and contusion over the cheekbone showed he also had been “forcefully struck” on the left side of the head, in Utz’s words — a point that had never been mentioned by the FBI.

Bruising does not occur to a significant extent once a person is dead — especially if the heart has been destroyed by bullets and there has been significant loss of blood — since there is no blood pressure to push blood out of damaged blood vessels into surrounding tissue. This means it is likely the blow suffered by Todashev came before he was shot.

http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/03/24/dark-questions-about-a-deadly-fbi-interrogation-in-orlando/