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Federal Files: Marathon Bomber Passed U.S. Citizenship Test

Monday, February 29, 2016 8:16 am | < 1 Minute Read
BOSTON (AP) —
FILE - In this Dec. 18, 2014, courtroom sketch, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sits in federal court in Boston for a final hearing before his trial begins in January. More than 30 victims of the Boston Marathon bombing and their family members are expected to describe the attack’s impact on their lives before a judge formally sentences Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death. Tsarnaev’s sentencing hearing is scheduled for Wednesday, June 24, 2015, in U.S. District Court. (Jane Flavell Collins via AP, File)
In this Dec. 18, 2014 courtroom sketch, Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev sits in federal court in Boston for a final hearing before his trial. (Jane Flavell Collins via AP, File)

Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev passed the U.S. citizenship test and denied terrorism links just months before he and his brother detonated two pressure cooker bombs that killed three people at the race’s finish line.

The revelations were made in hundreds of heavily redacted Department of Homeland Security documents provided to The Boston Globe.

Tsarnaev died several days after the April 15, 2013 bombings during a shoot-out with police.

His brother, Dzhokhar, a naturalized U.S. citizen, was caught, tried, convicted and sentenced to death.

The brothers were ethnic Chechens who came to the U.S. from Russia.

The files did not show any concerns from federal officials about Tamerlan Tsarnaev.

U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services said in a statement that it found no errors in the processing of his citizenship application.

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