In the trial of Boston bombing suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, under cross-examination by the defence and prosecution, FBI agent Steven Kimbal looked at Tsarnaev’s Twitter accounts and misidentified a picture of a mosque in Grozny as Mecca, the Guardian writes.
FBI special agent Steven Kimball showed the court the front page of a second Twitter account that he alleged also belonged to Tsarnaev, and read out tweets from his separate personal account. "You said the picture [that forms the background of the second account] was a picture of Mecca," defense lawyer Miriam Conrad asked Kimball. "Yes, to the best of my knowledge,” Kimball answered. Then Conrad asked Kimball if had ever looked at a picture of Mecca, and after receiving a negative response, stated that they were talking about an image of Grozny. The Guardian noted that it is the Akhmad Kadyrov Mosque in Grozny, Gazeta.ru reports.
Kimball also did not know that several of the tweets the prosecution had highlighted yesterday as pointing towards Tsarnaev’s radicalisation were actually lyrics from pop songs, the article says.
