An FBI agent has shot dead a Florida man being questioned about last month's Boston Marathon bombings in the United States.
The shooting took place early on Wednesday as the man of Chechen origin was being questioned about his connection to Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of two Chechen brothers suspected of carrying out the bombings.
Three people were killed and 264 injured in the attacks on 15 April.
The shooting occurred in an apartment complex near the Universal Studios theme park, where the FBI and members of other law enforcement agencies including the Massachusetts State Police were interviewing the man, Reuters reports.
The FBI said the man initiated a "violent confrontation" and a special agent responded with "deadly force."
The man was killed and the special agent was transported to the hospital with non-life-threatening injuries."
A friend of the dead man identified him to local media as 27-year-old Ibragim Todashev, who had previously lived in Boston and knew Tamerlan Tsarnaev.
The friend, Khusn Taramiv, said Ibragim Todashev knew the Boston bombing suspect because both were mixed martial-arts fighters but had no connection to the bombing.
Authorities were also stepping up their investigation into possible connections between Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who died in a shootout with police, and an unsolved 2011 triple homicide in a Boston suburb that investigators believe was drug related.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, and his 19-year-old brother Dzhokhar are suspected of setting off two pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon finish line. Dzhokhar is being held at a prison hospital west of Boston awaiting trial on charges that carry the possibility of the death penalty.
