MMA Fighter Shot and Killed While Being Questioned About Connection to Boston Marathon Bombing Suspects

Professional mixed martial artist Ibragim Todashev was shot and killed by an FBI agent in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday after being questioned about his link to one of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects.

Todashev was a 27-year-old Chechen-born Orlando resident and alleged acquaintance of Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the two brothers that carried out the Boston Marathon bombings that killed three people and wounded more than 260 others.

Todashev was 1-0 as a professional fighter.  He defeated Bradford May by guillotine choke in the first round on July 27, 2012, in the Florida-based Real Fighting Championships promotion.

The shooting occurred just after midnight in an apartment complex in Orlando.  An FBI agent, two Massachusetts State troopers and other law enforcement officers were interviewing Todashev when an altercation erupted.

Law enforcement officials told the Associated Press that Todashev lunged at the agent with a knife.  The agent sustained non-life-threatening injuries.

Todashev met Tamerlan Tsarnaev in Boston through mixed martial arts, according to friend Khusen Taramov.

“They met a few times because (Todashev) was an MMA fighter and (Tsarnaev) was a boxer,” Taramov told WKMG-TV. “They just knew each other. That’s it.”

According to NBC News, Todashev was not suspected to have played a role in the Boston Marathon bombings, but was about to sign a confession to “playing a role” in an unsolved triple murder case in which three men were discovered, throats slit and bodies covered in marijuana, in an apartment in Waltham, Mass., when the confrontation occurred.

Four days after the Boston Marathon bombings, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed in a shootout with police in Watertown, Mass.  His younger brother, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, was arrested the following day and charged in connection with the bombings.