A mosque in Cambridge, Mass., confirmed Saturday that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the Chechen-born brothers suspected in the Boston marathon attacks, infrequently attended services at the small center that was a 10-minute walk from their apartment.
"In their visits, they never exhibited any violent sentiments or behavior. Otherwise they would have been immediately reported to the FBI," said the statement from the Islamic Center of Boston. "After we learned of their identities, we encouraged anyone who knew them in our congregation to immediate report to law enforcement, which has taken place."
A copy of the statement was distributed to reporters and posted online.
Anwar Kazmi, a member of the mosque's board of trustees, told a USA Today reporter that 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died early Friday morning after a shootout with police, was an infrequent attendee for about a year-and-a-half, while 19-year-old Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, who was captured hiding in a boat in Watertown on Friday night, attended only once.
The Los Angeles Times reported that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was kicked out of the mosque three months ago after he interrupted a Friday prayer service to argue with the imam. The imam leading the service had enraged Tsarnaev by talking about Martin Luther King Jr. A congregant told the newspaper that Tsarnaev shouted, "you cannot mention this guy because he's not a Muslim!'
Imam Suhaib Webb, of the Islamic Society of Boston Cultural Center, the city's largest mosque, said in an interview that he had recently heard of the incident. "That's a sign right there that his views aren't mainstream," Webb said.
The Cambridge mosque leaders' theology is not extremist, he said. Webb's mosque has the same owners but separate administration from the Islamic Society of Boston. Webb said he never met the brothers and had not found their names on his mosque's membership list.
Reports previously quoted friends of the brothers saying they had attended the mosque, but Saturday was the first time the mosque confirmed their association.
"Right now, our focus will remain on grieving for the victims and their families, praying for a speedy recovery for the injured, and offering what support we can to all in need," the statement said.
Friends and family have described Tamerlan Tsarnaev as becoming more strident in his religious views in recent years. Federal authorities are investigating a six-month trip he took in 2012 to Chechnya and Dagestan, Muslim-majority regions in Russia and home to militant separatist movements. Reports have painted Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev as also being interested in Chechen independence movements.
The investigation is ongoing into the motivation behind the crimes.
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