In December 2014, she flew to Boston, barely scraping together enough money for the ticket and one night in a hotel, to attend Jahar’s final pretrial hearing—the first time he would be brought to court since pleading not guilty in July 2013. As the brief proceedings were wrapping up, she shouted out in Russian: “Dzhokhar, there are people here who love you! We pray for you and support you! We know you are innocent!” She told me later she had decided ahead of time she would scream in Russian “so he would know it wasn’t someone mocking him.” As the U.S. marshals moved in to usher Elena out of the courtroom, she screamed at them, too: “I am an American citizen and I have the right to say what I think!”
Eleven
EVERYONE IS GOING TO JAIL
After he pulled off his shirt, as instructed, outside the apartment door, Azamat was frisked, handcuffed, shackled, walked a few paces through a thicket of men in SWAT gear, and shoved into the backseat of a police car. A few moments later a man in civilian clothes thrust his head into the car. He was in his forties, broad-shouldered, with close-cropped gray hair and plain white good looks.
“Where the fuck is Jahar?” he shouted.
“I don’t know,” said Azamat. “The news says he is in Watertown.”
“Don’t you fucking lie to me!” barked the agent. Afterward, he shouted something else about Jahar’s life being over and Azamat’s being in danger.
After about an hour just sitting in the cruiser while men in SWAT gear ran around and in and out of the building, shouting and radioing, Azamat was driven a short distance in New Bedford. He no longer knew where Dias and Bayan were. An officer got him out of the car, unshackled him, and told him to stand next to the vehicle. Azamat stood. People in uniform and in civilian clothes continued to run in and out of the building. They had arrived at the state police barracks, where the FBI had temporarily set up shop that afternoon, nearly certain that Jahar would be captured at the Carriage Drive apartment. It was another hour before someone led Azamat into the building, into a tiny, windowless room that was almost completely empty—even the shelves against one of the walls were barren, save for a recording device that sat on one of them. The device, however, would not be used, because the FBI records interviews only with subjects who are in custody, which Azamat was not.
There were two agents in the room, an olive-skinned man and a pale woman. They were both small—they did not tower over Azamat like the man who had shouted at him. Although Azamat was still handcuffed and shirtless, he must have felt a bit less scared—Special Agent Sara Wood later testified that he was relaxed and smiling. He asked to go to the bathroom. The agents said he could not, just yet. He said he was bursting and would go in his shorts if they did not let him use the bathroom. One of the agents said that he could go if he signed a form first. The form said that Azamat was agreeing to talk to the FBI voluntarily and was waiving his right to an attorney. Azamat signed—he would have signed that anyway—and then Special Agent Farbod Azad, the olive-skinned man, took him to the bathroom.
When Agent Azad brought Azamat back, they began talking. It was just before eight on Friday evening. It was almost half past four in the morning on Saturday when Azamat got home. In the intervening hours, Agent Wood, the pale woman, asked most of the questions, and Agent Azad took notes. Azamat answered questions about Jahar, who not long after the questioning began was found in the boat in Watertown, though Azamat would not know about this until later. Sometimes one of the agents would leave the room for a while. At one point Azamat was so cold that he begged the agents to find him a shirt. Agent Wood went to look for one but returned empty-handed. Apparently, in the entire police barracks filled with people many of whom had come in from other cities (Agent Wood herself had driven up from New York that morning), no one had a spare shirt, T-shirt, sweater, or jacket to lend to Azamat. Agent Wood later testified that Azamat shook violently but not from the cold: it was nerves. She said that the shakes began when the questioning brought them to Thursday night and the friends’ visit to Jahar’s dorm room. Azamat told the agents that they had taken a computer, his own Beats headphones, and a backpack. He also told them that in the morning, once he learned that Jahar had been identified as one of the bombers, he had told Dias that he needed to remember where he had disposed of the backpack.
“Why?” asked Agent Wood. She later testified that Azamat shrugged in response.
“Why did you throw out the backpack?”
“I don’t know.” In Russian, even more than in American culture, “I don’t know” can mean many things other than simply pleading ignorance—including “I don’t know what to say” and “I don’t know how to explain it to you.”
“Between his shaking and indicating that they threw the backpack out, it was clear we weren’t getting the full story,” Agent Wood later told a jury in federal court. “As I began to confront him, he continued to say, ‘I don’t know.’ Finally, he didn’t respond, but his shoulders slumped and his body language changed. I lowered my voice and leaned across the table. ‘What was in the backpack?’ He responded, ‘The stuff you use on New Year’s.’”
Agent Wood did not understand.
“Petarda,” said Azamat, trying a Russian word. No match.
He tried to use a translation app on his iPhone, as he had several times during the conversation, but it did not know the word, either. He gestured with his hands and tried to imitate the sound of fireworks: “Wee, wee, wee, boom!” Agent Wood finally got it.
On the fourth iteration, Azamat’s list of things removed from Jahar’s room included: the laptop, the headphones, the backpack with hollow fireworks, and a brown ashtray, which he also had not mentioned earlier. He succeeded in omitting what he most wanted to conceal, which was the bag of marijuana. And he still did not know where Dias had thrown the backpack.
Before Azamat mentioned the fireworks, but after he had handed the agents his phone and told them the password and gone through and translated for them the text messages he had exchanged with Dias, he asked if he should speak to his consulate. Agent Wood got the number of the Kazakh consulate and let Azamat use the landline, but it was half past ten at night and he got voice mail.
A bit after midnight, the agents told Azamat that he was free to go. He had no idea how to get home: Dias had also been taken into custody, and at any rate, Azamat had no phone service. He put his head on the lone desk in the little room and fell asleep.
The person who roused him was the big man from the previous afternoon. He was Agent John Walker, and he was directing this part of the investigation.
“I’m beginning to think I am being held here against my will,” said Azamat.