In the aftermath of the
arrest of the younger Boston bomber and the death of the older one, attention
has turned to Katherine Russell, the American wife of Tamerlan Tsarnaev and
mother of his 3 year old daughter Zahara.
Russell was a talented
artist, a good student who grew up as a Christian, the daughter of a suburban
doctor. Then she went off to college in Boston.
A few years later, she had
dropped out of school, converted to Islam and was Karima Tsarnaev, wife of a
man who would become a suspect in the deadly Boston Marathon bombings and a
subject of one of the biggest manhunts in American history.
Tsarnaev, 24, has avoided
the public eye since her identity became known Friday. On the rare occasions
when she has emerged from her parents’ Rhode Island home, she is dressed in the
traditional Muslim headscarf, a hijab, and has refused to answer questions.
Those who know her and knew her husband describe her as sweet and dedicated to
Islam.
Katherine grew up with two
younger sisters in North Kingstown, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her father,
Warren Russell, is an emergency doctor and her mother, Judith Russell, works at
a social services agency.
She attended North
Kingstown High School, graduating in 2007. Her yearbook entry lists her plans
as college and the Peace Corps. However all this changed when she enrolled in
Suffolk University in Boston. She met Tamerlan Tsarnaev at a nightclub,
introduced by one of her girlfriends.
They dated on and off for
a while until they got married on June 21, 2010. Katherine dropped out of
school, converted to Islam and changed her name to Karima. Their friends in
university have said that Tamerlan became overly religious and stopped hanging
out with them and also forbade Katherine from going out with them. He became
extremely judgmental, they said.
The couple lived with
their daughter in the Tsarnaev family apartment, which was shared over the
years with his mother, Zubeidat, and father, Anzor, now divorced, and Dzhokhar,
the younger brother and second Boston bombing suspect.
Though, many people close
to him have said that Tamerlan, the older bombing suspect and Katherine’s
husband, had begun to develop extremist tendencies before the bombings and his
subsequent death, Katherine has said through her lawyer, Amato Deluca, that she
had no reason to suspect her husband of anything and was focused on supporting
her family, working 70 to 80 hours, seven days a week as a home health care
aide. Her husband cared for their daughter when she was away, Deluca said.
However, Anne Kilzer, a
frequent customer of his mother’s described Tamerlan Tsarnaev as surly and
intimidating and painted his wife as cowed and intimidated by him. “She was a
very sweet woman, but I think kind of brainwashed by him,” she said. The
apartment was so cramped and crowded, Kilzer said, that it would have been
difficult for Tsarnaev to hide criminal activity from his wife. Neighbours of
the couple have also said that Tamerlan abused his wife and that there were
frequent arguments at and police visits to the Tsarnaev home.
Federal authorities have
asked to interview Katherine, and DeLuca on Sunday told The Associated Press he
is discussing with them how to proceed. He said on Tuesday during a brief
statement to reporters that his client “is doing everything she can to assist
with the investigation,” although he would not answer questions about whether
she had spoken with federal authorities.
DeLuca said she
learned that her husband was suspected of being responsible for bombing
the Boston Marathon the same way a lot of other people did: on TV.
Her other lawyer, Miriam
Weizenbaum, said on Tuesday that reports of her husband and brother-in-law’s
involvement in the bombings came as a shock to Tsarnaev and her family and said
she deeply mourned the loss of innocent victims. Tsarnaev, she said, was trying
to come to terms with the events.
The question still to be
asked however, is, what kind of woman is Katherine Russell or Karima Tsarnaev
as she is now known? Is she a woman who was so afraid of her husband that she’d
rather watch him kill innocent people than speak up against him? What gave him
so much power over her that she totally changed the course of her life for him?
It is said that behind every successful man lies a good woman; the question to
be asked now is what kind of woman lies behind a terrorist?
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