A male relative of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects told The Boston Globe that he warned the 19-year-old fugitive Dzhokhar Tsarnaev that his older brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was a bad influence. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, died early Friday after a shootout with police. 

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev ran over his wounded brother as he fled police, officials told The Boston Globe. 

From The Boston Globe: 

A picture has begun to emerge of 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev as an aggressive, possibly radicalized immigrant who may have ensnared his younger brother Dzhokhar -- described almost universally as a smart and sweet kid -- into an act of terror that killed three people and injured more than at the finish line of the Boston Marathon on Monday.

“I used to warn Dzhokhar that Tamerlan was up to no good,” Zaur Tsarnaev, who identified himself as a 26-year-old cousin, said in a phone interview on Friday from Makhachkala. “[Tamerlan] was always getting into trouble. He was never happy, never cheering, never smiling. He used to strike his girlfriend. He hurt her a few times. He was not a nice man. I don’t like to speak about him. He caused problems for my family.”

Zaur spoke of Dzhokhar as contrasting his older brother.

“Dzhokhar is a sweet boy, innocent. He was always smiling, friendly and happy,” Zaur Tsarnaev said. “I don’t know how he is involved in this.”

Zaur Tsarnaev said that Tamerlan went to mosque sometimes but was “never an extremist.”

An aunt of the suspects told reporters in Toronto that Tamerlan Tsarnaev became a devout Muslim about two years ago who prayed five times a day, and she didn’t believe the brothers were involved in Monday’s bombing, the Associated Press reported. 

‘‘He has a wife in Boston and from a Christian family, so you can’t tie it to religion,’’ Maret Tsarnaeva said. ‘‘At that age all they want is love, so he found his love, he married, he had a daughter, and he was very happy about his daughter.’’

Tsarnaeva said she wants proof the brothers were involved in the Boston Marathon bombing. 

‘‘We’re talking about three dead people, 100-something injured, and I do not believe, I just do not believe our boys would do that,” Tsarnaeva said. “I don’t know them in the way that they could be capable of this.”

 

Read more of Neon Tommy’s coverage on Boston here.

Reach Executive Producer Agnus Dei Farrant here.