FBI agents in Florida shot and killed an associate of one of the Boston marathon bombers in self-defense, shortly after he implicated himself and Tamerlan Tsarnaev in a 2011 triple murder.

The federal investigators were attempting to question 27-year old Ibragim Todashev, an ethnic Chechen who trained mixed martial arts with his friend Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the man killed in a shoot-out with cops during the massive manhunt that followed the bombing.

Todashev had made statements implicating himself and Tsarnaev in the murders of three men in Massachusetts in 2011.  Tsarnaev and Todashev apparently intended to steal drugs from the victims, but then killed the three to keep them silent.

After that, an FBI statement says Todashev initiated “a violent confrontation”, and the agent, “acting on the imminent threat posed by the individual, responded with deadly force. The individual was killed and the special agent was transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries.”

It was not Todashev’s first run in with the law.  He was arrested earlier this month on suspicion of assault, after putting a man in hospital over a dispute over a parking spot at an Orlando shopping center.

The 15 April bombing killed three spectators at the Boston Marathon and injured scores of people, many suffering traumatic amputations.  Tsarnaev’s 19-year old younger brother was arrested after the manhunt and faces the death penalty if convicted.