Khairullozhon Matanov Brutalized in Prison

“I feel unsafe in PCCF, and I have a great fear for my life,” wrote Khairullozhon Matanov, 24, in a letter to this author postmarked November 1, 2014. Matanov is awaiting trial for allegedly lying to the FBI in an effort to downplay his relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev, accused Boston bomber who was killed by police in April 2013.

Matanov was severely beaten by guards after flooding his cell in protest against the constant Islamophobic harassment at the Plymouth County Correctional Facility (PCCF). The incident was reported in a letter from Matanov to a friend postmarked October 24, 2014 and also by a sympathetic fellow inmate, who has since been moved to another unit. The remaining inmates taunt him in a hostile manner. 

“They harass me so much, I don’t know what to do, they couldn’t see that I was being so peaceful, now even some ignorant inmates say bad things, and when they do it, the guards play the US National Anthem, it is awful,” writes Matanov.

The US National Anthem was also blasting on the night of October 22, when seven correctional officers sprayed tear gas into his cell. Unable to breathe, Matanov tried to get some air from under the door but was sprayed in the face. After allowing them to handcuff him, he collapsed. 

“When I was like half dead not moving at all they jump on me so badly. One of them stick his finger into my right eye (it’s swollen right now full of blood). After, the same person start saying, “You [expletive] Muslim terrorist” and kick my head... I pass out from pain, then I woke up when one of them twist my hand.”

Khair reports that he heard one of them say, “We have to take him out walking.”

“They took me out... the end? No! Horror just started. They put me in that chair with the spray all over my face and hands, left me for two and half hours in one room. I was crying and asking for help with my eye (literally burning with the pain). Ruthless human beings, I thought I am about to die. Fortunately for me it was not my time. I survived with lots of pain... No justice in this place.. If they will have an argument with me, they play national anthem, by the way when they came to get me in their suits they played the national anthem of USA. It is so awful, they are pulling USA down... I could hear and now I see they really really enjoyed this awful terror which they did against me.”

A week later, Matanov wrote, “Trying to get better, after all of this pain, but my eyes and my head is still not good, I can’t see properly, and I can’t read. If I do so my head goes crazy. They did not give me good medical care, even though I was beaten nearly to death.”

A former client of Matanov’s taxi service wrote in an email, “This is unbelievable. Months ago an officer told me the FBI sent him there so he would be safe...yeah right!”

Supporters contacted a number of agencies as well as the Consulate of Kyrgyzstan. It is hoped that the Kyrgyzstan ambassador to the US will visit Matanov as he did last Ramadan, after Matanov mentioned in a letter dated July 8 that he was not given any food for four days.

This is not the first time Matanov was punished for flooding his cell in protest of being singled out for harassment. In a letter postmarked August 21, he described another incident where he was stripped naked and taken to “Q5” - a cold, rubber room usually used for suicidal prisoners. He was left there without clothes, normal food or toilet for four days. 

“Now I told this to my lawyer, guess what, it was better to tell to a wall so I could hear the echo.”

Matanov’s court appointed attorney, Edward Hayden told Boston Magazine that “the injuries did not appear as extensive as what was described in the letter... He had a black eye, he had scrapes, bruises, and that’s what I saw…some of these letters and Tweets make it seem like he was beaten to an inch of his life, and that’s not true.” This was not the first time that Matanov’s lawyer undermined his case.

Bruce Gellerman tweeted on November 6 that Matanov filed a motion to withdraw his attorney Edward Hayden. There will be a closed hearing on November 20.

The government is putting Matanov under intense pressure because they want to break his resolve to maintain his innocence. He was offered his freedom if he would become an FBI informant as he wrote on July 15. When he refused, he was then offered a shorter sentence of seven years if he would plead guilty, he wrote on July 24.

The day after the attack on Matanov, an inmate at the same prison, Marcus Czaja, 32, was found dead in his cell while on November 3, Steven Wayne Roderick, 34, died at PCCF. Both deaths were ruled suicides. 

Todashev Relative Offers Home to BMB Suspect

A long bail hearing for Khairullozhon Matanov, friend of Boston Marathon bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, who is facing the death penalty, took place on June 4, 2014. The thin, fragile-looking 23 year old asked Judge Marianne Bowler for "voluntary incarceration" instead of requesting bail because he had nowhere to live, since he lost his job as a taxi driver on account of his arrest. This same Judge Bowler convicted Tarek Mehanna of terrorism support based on inflammatory rhetoric in April of 2010.

Upon hearing this pitiful news, Elena Teyer, the mother of the wife of Ibrahim Todashev, who was murdered by the FBI in his Florida home in May of 2013, immediately contacted Matanov's attorney Edward Hayden to offer the young man a room in her home in Georgia and volunteered to pay for his transportation there. She has never met the Tsarnaevs nor this man before, but since the murder of her son-in-law she feels strongly, "We are all family now."

In August 2013, Teyer's daughter, Todashev's wife, Reniya Manukyan traveled to Dagestan to visit Zubeidat and Anzor Tsarnaev, Jahar and Tamerlan's parents.

"We cried so much there's just no more tears left," Reniya said about the visit.

Teyer wants to testify in the Tsarnaev trial as a witness against the FBI but her letters to Jahar's attorneys go unanswered. This is despite the fact that government prosecutors added to the case against Tsarnaev a clause implicating his brother Tamerlan in a triple homicide based on an alleged confession Todashev "was about to write down" before the FBI shot him seven times.

"I saw the body. I saw the inside of the apartment where he was killed," she says.

Teyer is determined to fight for justice and for the truth to come out about this concerted government attack on Russo-Muslim immigrants to the US.

"I am recently retired from long term active duty in the US Army. I'm not like these kids [Jahar's friends]. I'm not afraid."

Khairullozhon Matanov, originally from Kyrgyzstan, probably has by now realized that he walked into a trap. When the FBI posted photographs of the Tsarnaev brothers on TV and asked the public to identify them, they already knew who the boys were and where they lived. Local police reported that the FBI already had Tamerlan's home in Cambridge under surveillance.

The FBI seems to have cast a dragnet to lure in anyone who might know the Tsarnaevs, so that they could then ensnare them into false testimony or else prosecute them; therefore creating a false public impression that the FBI had heroically disrupted a local "terror cell."

Matanov believed the Tsarnaev brothers would never have committed the bombing and presumably was hoping to clear their names when he contacted the Braintree, Massachusetts police department and offered to give them whatever information he had, which was limited to their names and addresses, because he had no information whatsoever about the brothers being involved in the bombing. A few days after it happened he had even invited them for dinner at a local restaurant, something you don't normally do if you think a person might be a dangerous criminal hiding from authorities. The police contacted the FBI, who contacted Matanov approximately 24 hours later.

Instead of thanking him for the information, the FBI then started an intense investigation on Matanov. They conducted many interviews with him over the next year or so, in addition to both overt and covert surveillance. The most obvious surveillance was reported to the media by neighbors: an unmanned aircraft circling around his home. The only surveillance FBI Agent Timothy McElroy, who was on the witness stand for the majority of Matanov's bail hearing, admitted to was what he called "bumper log surveillance" - following Matanov around in black, unmarked government vehicles, keeping him in sight at all times. Manatov was also contacted via his attorney and told to stay away from Boston's July 4 and Patriots Day celebrations, to which he complied.

The hearing focused on his money transfers overseas and the fact that he had asked a friend to dispose of some cell phones, knowing the FBI would be on their way.

The majority of the money was sent to his family but there were 15 people in 6 countries whom he wired money to that did not share his last name, some of whom he used false aliases to contact, for example he sent an undisclosed amount of money as Ali Hasan to Kamoliodin Niiazaliev. The defense argued that he operated an illegal business selling stolen cell phones overseas, and that these wire transfers had nothing to do with terrorism. The FBI testimony was deliberately vague and allowed court reporters to insinuate that the purpose of the money transfers was related to terrorism in order to create a media buzz.

Attorney Hayden told Elena Teyer that he will try to find out if Matanov could be released to her home or to that of another person in Massachusetts who volunteered their home, as well as the amount of bail. A commissary account is being opened for Matanov's needs in prison by members of the Free Jahar movement. It is hoped that once he understands that he is not alone, Matanov will stand up and fight for his rights instead of bowing his head in fear.