DREAMS OF GLORY: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the bombing suspect slain early yesterday, practices boxing at the Wai Kru Mixed Martial Arts Center in Boston, where he trained as a heavyweight fighter. (
)
He was as American as apple pie, a handsome Golden Gloves boxer who wore preppy sweaters, married his high-school sweetheart and tooled around the family’s quaint Boston neighborhood in a Mercedes.
But Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old Chechen immigrant, also harbored an increasingly alarming hatred of his adopted country.
“He said in Russian, ‘I don’t like what America is doing,’ ” a Latvian neighbor told The Post yesterday, recalling a chat he had with the Boston bombing suspect, who was killed early yesterday in a shootout with police in Watertown, Mass.
“I said, ‘What do you mean?’ He said, ‘I don’t like it because they shouldn’t be in Muslim countries.’ ’’
Tsarnaev’s wife, Katherine Russell, a 24-year-old Muslim convert, remained holed up with her parents at their Rhode Island home yesterday.
“Our daughter has lost her husband today, the father of her child,’’ the family said in a note posted outside the home, the Daily Mail of London reported.
“In the aftermath of the Patriots Day horror, we know that we never really knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev.”
Tsarnaev had come to the United States with his two younger sisters around 2003. It was several months after his parents and his younger brother — fellow bomb suspect Dzhokhar — emigrated, seeking political asylum.
It was a land of opportunity for Tsarnaev.
A former classmate told The Post that the then-teen immigrant was an extremely “bright,” popular student at the prestigious Cambridge Latin and Rindge HS, which also counts Matt Damon and Ben Affleck among its alums.
After high school, Tsarnaev went to Bunker Hill Community College to study engineering and pursue his beloved boxing.
Around the same time, his interest in religion went into overdrive.
He posted a YouTube clip from radical Muslim cleric Feiz Mohammad, who once claimed that women who were raped had been asking for it.
STORIES
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/twisted_bond_of_brothers_LBvUBykfQnQqVi7TwINvuI” target=’_BLANK’>Second suspect captured; brothers’ motives for massacre remain unclear
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/he_partied_with_pals_after_blast_7Vj5w9ZI1wM26YiHg4RoDN” target=’_BLANK’>Suspect partied with pals after blast
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/bomb_cleric_fanned_flames_xSSk2xljKzS4oq55z4wsvK” target=’_BLANK’>’Bomb’ cleric fanned flames
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/cheers_to_you_police_7NbDESUkOZBXWdwRKAX4HL” target=’_BLANK’>Cheers to you, police
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/they_re_just_losers_1W7w08UedfugWOQuFtjjBN” target=’_BLANK’>Uncle: they’re just ‘losers’
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/born_to_be_cop_h0P4ibLWkAiqgDvFSSGYyL” target=’_BLANK’>Fallen officer was ‘born to be a cop’
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/victim_id_the_bomber_Z2kl2i04zQkyzI3oDX6ZHN” target=’_BLANK’>Victim ID’d suspect
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/the_unfinished_war_1aRsX9iSPB0T3ZwjzL6rUI” target=’_BLANK’>Editorial: The unfinished war
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/international/pride_in_warring_chechnya_homeland_Lt7pMdgoHasAZ5ck0E6B4N” target=’_BLANK’>Pride in warring Chechnya homeland
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/national/the_killer_lurks_FmH8QSCyupvJOWBJzRfxqK” target=’_BLANK’>Eerie photo captures victim, suspect
MEDIA
» Photos: Hunt for suspect
» http://www.nypost.com/r/nypost/2013/04/20/media/web_terror01.pdf” target=’_BLANK’>Map: A 2-day trail of blood
» http://www.nypost.com/p/news/boston_marathon_bombings_suspect_f71z10H5f6ZtjwSdXkoDUJ” target=’_BLANK’>Video: press conference
He also posted a playlist on YouTube that included a song called, “I will dedicate my life to Jihad.’’
On an amazon.com wish list created in 2007, Tsarnaev didn’t even try to hide that he might be up to something nefarious in the future.
Among the books he asked people to buy for him were: “How to Make Driver’s Licenses and Other ID on Your Home Computer’’ and similar titles.
A few years ago, Tsarnaev talked about his isolation as an observant Muslim.
“I don’t have a single American friend,” Tsarnaev was quoted as saying in a photo montage on a Boston University student news Web site. “I don’t understand them.”
His brother and parents became US citizens this past Sept. 11 — but not Tsarnaev.
He had been busted for domestic violence against a girlfriend in 2009 — and The New York Times reported that the arrest is what held up his citizenship.
A neighbor said he had recent personal troubles, too — fighting in the street with his wife and father until cops responded.