Nabisat Suleimanova

Nabisat Suleimanova testified through an interpreter for the defense on Day 57 about family authority customs and her memories of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as a child. She identified herself as his cousin and recalled living with his parents in Kyrgyzstan and Chechnya. After acknowledging limited knowledge of the many traditions, she described differences between Avar and Chechen customs and said an older brother or another older male usually bore family responsibility. She remembered Dzhokhar as warm and caring, and family and residence photographs were admitted.

Her account included qualifications about dates and firsthand knowledge. She could not remember the year of the move to Chechnya or how long the family stayed, was in Kaspiysk when they left, and saw them rarely afterward. William Fick sought to use a Kyrgyzstan birth certificate to illustrate family chaos, expressly disclaiming any argument that Dzhokhar was under 18. The court stopped that questioning because the document had not been authenticated. It also limited questions about an early caregiving anecdote, a border crossing, reasons for leaving Chechnya, her reaction to a recording, and extremist ideas. The prosecution asked no questions, and she was excused.

In a subsequent proffer, Fick said she would have described Anzor insisting on entering Chechnya despite warnings about fighting. He also proposed connecting her reaction to recordings of Tamerlan with her family's concerns about radical ideas in their community. These were descriptions of proposed testimony, not testimony she completed. Miriam Conrad argued that the family history was relevant mitigation and that the court's comment could lead jurors to discount it. The court considered the proposed evidence remote from the issues and declined reconsideration.