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Boston Suspects' Uncle: 'Turn Yourself In'

The uncle of the Boston Marathon bombing suspects has urged his nephew to turn himself in, saying he had brought shame to the family and the entire Chechnyan ethnicity.

"Yes, we're ashamed. They're the children of my brother," Ruslan Tsarni told a throng of reporters outside his home in Montgomery Village, Maryland.

The suspects have been identified by law enforcement officials and family members as Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, brothers from a Russian region near Chechnya.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a 26-year-old who had been known to the FBI as Suspect No 1 and was seen in surveillance footage in a black baseball cap, was killed overnight, officials said.

His brother, a 19-year-old college student who was dubbed Suspect No. 2, escaped. He was seen wearing a white, backward baseball cap in the images from Monday's deadly bombing at the marathon finish line.

Mr Tsarni said: "Dzhokhar, if you're alive, turn yourself in and ask for forgiveness from the victims, from the injured, and from those who left. Ask forgiveness from these people."

Mr Tsarni called his nephews "losers" and said his family had not seen them since December 2005. They lived near Boston and had been in the US for about a decade.

He said vehemently that Chechnya had nothing to do with the attack. He said his nephews had struggled to settle themselves in the US and ended up "thereby just hating everyone".

Mr Tsarni said his nephew "put a shame" on his family, adding they "put a shame on the entire Chechnyan ethnicity".

Mr Tsarni said his brother left the US and he has not talked to him since 2009. He said he did not believe the suspects' father played any role in the suspects' alleged actions.

"If somebody radicalised them ... it's not my brother, who just moved back to Russia. Who spent his life bringing bread to that table, fixing cars."

Mr Tsarni offered his condolences to the victims.

"We're sharing with them their grief. I'm ready just to meet with them. I'm ready just to bend in front of them, to kneel in front of them, seeking that forgiveness," he said.