“Misha.” A new name has emerged in the Boston Marathon bombing case—one familiar to the family of the two young men accused of the atrocity, and apparently of interest to the Russian and American security services as well. An uncle of the alleged bombers claims that Misha, an Armenian convert to Islam, had a huge influence on the elder brother, Tamerlan Tsarnaev: “Somehow he just took his brain.” Under Misha’s influence, Tamerlan gave up boxing and music and withdrew into himself—classic signs of radicalization. …

“Misha is a friend in Boston,” she says. “I hope he is healthy and sound. He is a young man. There is no negative.” Investigators are barking up the wrong tree, she said. “Misha is a crystal clean young man, an Armenian, a Muslim with a red beard.” He is “a new believer” and “an intellectual.” (Armenian culture is Christian. A man with Armenian roots in the United States who converted to Islam might have his own issues of alienation.)

What Zubeidat did not say, and what reporters have not yet ascertained, is Misha’s last name or location. Apparently the family only knew this “crystal clean” man by his first name, if that is his first name. …

Zubeidat says the American and Russian investigators “asked me if my son or Misha were Salafis. I said, no, pure Muslims.”