Florida state prosecutors on Friday denied that they had cleared an FBI agent who shot dead a friend of the Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev while interrogating him.

The FBI is understood to have concluded that the officer who shot Ibragim Todashev, 27, was left with no alternative but to fire in self defence after being struck on the neck with a metal pole.

But the state attorney in Florida, Jeff Ashton, denied that he had come to the same conclusion. Ashton's spokesman said he had completed his investigation but would make a final decision on how to proceed over the weekend. A review, by the civil rights division of the Department of Justice, is also understood to be complete.

Ashton issued an angrily worded statement on Friday after media reports claimed he had decided not to charge the officer, saying the leaks on which they were based were “inaccurate and unfair”.

The unnamed agent was one of several who went to Todashev’s apartment in Orlando on 22 May 2013, to question the Chechen over his friendship with Tsarnaev and about the murder in Massachusetts of another of the bomber’s friends. In the hours and days after the death, officials gave various accounts of what happened.



Supporters of Todashev, a mixed martial arts fighter who was struck by six bullets in the torso and another in the back of the head, expressed their “concern” on Friday but said they wanted to study the reports in detail before reacting further.

“This is one of many different accounts put forward by the FBI, but it’s not just about the moment an agent pulled the trigger, there’s a lot more to it than that,” said Hassan Shibley, executive director of the Florida chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), which represents Todashev’s family.

“We want to compare what these reports say to our own investigation. We’re still seeking clarification and how these sort of total force situations can be avoided.”

Since the shooting, which occurred barely a month after bombs planted by Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar killed three and injured more than 260 at the Boston Marathon, investigators have looked at “every aspect” of the incident, a senior law enforcement source told the Guardian.

Initially, the FBI claimed that Todashev, who went to the same gym in Boston as his Chechen friend, had “flipped out” under questioning, having just confessed his involvement in the triple murder in Waltham in 2011. An early allegation, since discounted, was that he lunged at the agent with a knife, while another said he grabbed a martial arts sword from a wall. The account that he struck the agent with a metal pole emerged a week after the incident.

Todashev's family, however, have always insisted that Todashev was a mild-mannered character who knew Tsarnaev only casually, had no involvement in either the bombing or the murders, and was disabled by recent knee surgery that would have left him incapable of attacking his interrogators.

At the time, his father Abdul-Baki Todashev accused the FBI of executing his son. “I'd only seen and heard things like that in the movies – they shoot somebody and then a shot in the head to make sure,” he said.

“These just aren't FBI agents, they’re bandits.”

Supporters have also accused the federal authorities of harassment and intimidation of Todashev’s friends, at least two of whom have been deported since his death, including a girlfriend who lived in Orlando.

Ashton, state attorney for Florida’s Orange County, in which the shooting took place, will formally announce the finding of his report on Tuesday morning. His criminal inquiry was launched in August last year, in response to growing criticism of federal handling of the case.

On Friday, Ashton’s office confirmed its investigation was complete but added that the state attorney had not made any final decision and had not spoken to federal officials about it.

“We do not know who said anything to the contrary,” said Richard Wallsh, Ashton’s chief assistant, in a statement to the Guardian. “The state attorney intends to review all materials over the weekend and make his final decision no later than sometime Monday. The release of purported information is inaccurate and unfair to Mr Todashev’s surviving family and the police officers involved in the incident and their families.



“It also contravenes and frustrates all of the efforts to date by employees of the FBI, DOJ and this office for the orderly and safe release of information. ”

As part of the investigation, Ashton met Todashev’s father when he visited from Russia and expressed his sympathy, according to Eric Ludin, a prominent Florida lawyer retained by CAIR to look into the incident.

Shibley has previously said that his group would wait for the results of the various investigations before deciding whether to pursue a private prosecution of the agent involved.