'Misha' Found In Rhode Island, Cooperating With Investigators
BOSTON (CBS) - "Misha," the mysterious man linked to Boston Marathon bombings suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev, has been located in Rhode Island.
Misha, whose full name is Mikhail Allakhverdov, lives with his elderly parents in their apartment in West Warwick.
Reporters camped outside the complex Monday, but there has been no sign of him.
According to the Tsarnaev family, Misha converted Tamerlan to a strict form of Islam and may have radicalized him.
WBZ NewsRadio 1030's Kim Tunnicliffe reports
Misha In Rhode Island
Misha told the New York Review of Books he did know Tamerlan, but he had not spoken to him in three years.
He also said he never met the family members who accused him of radicalizing Tamerlan, but he would not describe the nature of their relationship.
"I wasn't his teacher. If I had been his teacher, I would have made sure he never did anything like this," Allakhverdov, 39, told the review.
He claimed he's met with the FBI and has turned over his laptop and cell phone.
"He's been cooperative, according to the people I've spoken to," CBS News Senior Correspondent John Miller said Monday.
"They asked him for all the stuff they ask for in these things, can we have your computer, can we go over your phone, they're going to want to mirror his hard drive and see what his contacts were. They say he handed everything over, explained the relationship, said (he) wasn't a radicalizer."
"He's a guy who's now from Rhode Island, who was up in Boston at the time, knew the family, but he doesn't emerge as any fiery preacher or anybody of significance. So it's interesting to hear the family version of this svengali who came in and, to use their words, 'took over our sons' brain' and this guy who said, you know, 'I gave him some perspectives on life, but that was about it.'"
So what was the motive for the bombings?
It's still not known, but Miller said profilers are looking for "that stressor in life" if there wasn't some individual who guided him this way.
"What was that thing that pushed them over the edge?" Miller said.
"Once Tamerlan realized 'I'm not going to represent the United States in the Olympics on the boxing team'… that's a concept of what you can't have, you turn against."
