ORLANDO, Fla. — The father of a Chechen man fatally shot by an FBI agent in Orlando in May said his son was a conscientious and responsible young man who did not deserve to die and has retained two law firms to represent his family in possible civil action against the federal agency.
ORLANDO, Fla. — The father of a Chechen man fatally shot by an FBI agent in Orlando in May said his son was a conscientious and responsible young man who did not deserve to die and has retained two law firms to represent his family in possible civil action against the federal agency.
Standing behind a poster board with photos of his son as a child and as a man, Abdulbaki Todashev — whose 27-year-old son Ibragim was shot May 22 while he was being questioned by the FBI and Massachusetts State Police — said his son “was a very good boy, and he wanted to live.”
Speaking through a translator, Abdulbaki Todashev said his son was an innocent victim who was shot just two days before his scheduled return to his family in Russia. He had obtained his green card and was making his first trip back to the province of his birth in many years after immigrating to the United States.
He and officials with the Council on American-Islamic Relations hired private homicide investigators to look into the shooting death, interview his friends and examine his Orlando apartment where they said Ibragim was interrogated for more than four hours, they said during the news conference Tuesday.
Abdulbaki Todashev recently traveled to the United States from Russia to meet with attorneys and seek answers from law enforcement. He plans to meet with Orange-Osceola State Attorney Jeff Ashton, who announced last week he was reviewing the case, before he returns home.
Ibragim Todashev, who trained as a mixed martial arts fighter and was an acquaintance of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was “disabled” from a March knee surgery when he was alone in room with federal agents, his father and attorneys said.
With tissues in hand, the elder Todashev read from a statement and would not take questions from reporters because he is still in mourning, said his attorney, Eric Ludin, of Tampa, Fla.
Ludin said he and Barry Cohen, a high-profile Tampa attorney, are representing the Todashev family because they deserve to know what happened to the Chechen man while he was alone with federal officials.
“There is no reason Mr. Todashev should’ve been killed,” he said. “We aren’t going to comment on what we think happened inside that room.”
Hassan Shibly, executive director of the Florida Council on American-Islamic Relations in Tampa, told the Orlando Sentinel that CAIR’s investigation into the shooting turned up very “troubling” information.
Ludin said Todashev was not armed and they have no information as to whether federal agents suspected his involvement in a 2011 Massachusetts triple slaying.
He was told by Todashev’s friends that federal agents were talking to anyone who had had any contact with the suspected marathon bomber. Attorneys insisted the two men worked out at the same Boston gym but did not elaborate on the depth of their relationship.
The only object inside Todashev’s apartment that could be construed as a weapon was a dull decorative sword once used to pry open a stuck car, Shibly said.
“Sympathetic” federal sources within the Department of Justice and FBI have shared information about the case with CAIR, including assurances that the 27-year-old was unarmed. But Shibly declined to elaborate on anything else sources may have elucidated.
CAIR attorneys said Todashev was young when he came to the United States but could not say when exactly he arrived or whether he was employed or a student at the time of his death.
Ludin said his client’s son came because he wanted to immigrate to this country but he had few details about Ibragim Todashev’s life in the U.S. and in Central Florida.
Friends and family said he was a sociable man respected by all he knew him personally and those he trained with as a mixed martial arts fighter.
A former training partner of Todashev’s from Boston described him as “an incredibly gifted athlete” — with a temper.
In May, he knocked a stranger unconscious in a bloody fight over a parking space at the Premium Outlet Mall and was arrested on aggravated battery charges, according law enforcement records.
The FBI tried to talk to Abdulbaki Todashev while he has been in the U.S., his attorneys said, but the elder Todashev would not see them because he did not yet have an attorney.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” said the elder Todashev, who found the presents his son had bought the family when he came to Orlando to collect Ibragim’s belongings. “He was simply not capable of doing it.”
Ludin said Ibragim Todashev delayed his May 24 trip to back to Russia to cooperate with federal agents. He was killed during a promised last interview — after multiple interrogations — two days earlier.
Yvette Acosta MacMillan, a staff attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union, said the organization requested all documents prepared before and after the shooting death of Todashev from Orlando Police and the Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner’s office.
The FBI has not said whether Todashev was armed and, if he was, with what. The agency blocked the Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner’s Office from releasing the autopsy report.
But friends preparing Todashev’s body for his traditional Muslim funeral told CAIR there were several injuries including seven gun shot wounds, Shibly said.
Abdulbaki Todashev and his attorneys are discussing what options the family of the slain man has.
“We’ll let the chips fall where they may once we get the results of the investigation,” Ludin said.
According to multiple reports, the elder Todashev plans to pursue a wrongful death suit against the FBI, which has released little information about his son’s shooting.
Initially, the FBI said Todashev initiated a “violent confrontation” during the questioning at a condo near Universal Orlando.
“During the confrontation, the individual was killed and the agent sustained non-life threatening injuries,” the FBI said in a statement shortly after the shooting.
Orlando police had at least one officer present during the fatal confrontation, according to the American Civil Liberties Union, but neither the agency nor federal officials have confirmed that publicly.
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He said Todashev’s friends have said they were questioned by the FBI in the days before the fatal shooting, and threats were made suggesting that if the friends did not spy on local mosques, they would risk having their immigration statuses changed.
Shibly said CAIR officials want to find out whether the same types of threats were made by the FBI against Todashev. He also said a former police detective who reviewed the scene said it appeared Todashev was shot while he was on the ground, but the only way to confirm that is via the autopsy reports, which CAIR cannot obtain.
The same investigator also speculated all of the shots came from one agents’ gun — unusual in a justified law enforcement-involved homicide, Shibly said.
Meanwhile, FBI spokesman Special Agent Jason Pack told the Sentinel recently his agency continues to review the shooting. An incident-review team has interviewed witnesses and gathered information for a presentation to a Shooting Incident Review Group, which is composed of FBI and Department of Justice officials.
The ACLU asked the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate the Ibragim Todashev shooting, but the agency declined late last month, stating it would be inappropriate because it is a federal case.
Ludin and a team of attorneys from CAIR and the ACLU said they are grateful for Ashton’s decision to investigate the shooting in his jurisdiction, hoping it will be a “thorough and complete” independent review.
They plan to make Todashev’s father and friends available to him for interviews.
“We believe Ashton will hold law enforcement accountable,” Ludin said. “It’s not just about the family or the individual, this is about due process of the law.”