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Potential witness gets stay extended

Fla. roommate of Todashev’s was set to be deported

A potential witness in the May fatal shooting of Ibragim Todashev by an FBI agent in Florida has been granted permission to stay in the United States until the end of the month.

An immigration judge in Miami originally ordered Tatiana Igorevna Gruzdeva, a 19-year-old aspiring foreign language teacher and a Russian citizen who was arrested for overstaying her visa, to leave the country no later than July 1, but the removal office of the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency granted her a 30-day extension, according to an ICE official.

The agency did not say why it granted the extension.

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Gruzdeva will remain in jail until she leaves the country per the immigration judge’s order. Officials say she first came to the United States last year.

Gruzdeva’s ordered deportation had drawn concern from the Council on American-Islamic Relations in Florida, which is investigating Todashev’s death.

Todashev, 27, a Russian native living in Orlando when he was killed, was a friend of accused Boston Marathon bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev and was interviewed several times about that relationship.

During his final voluntary interview, Todashev was shot multiple times and killed by an agent who said the man attacked him.

Details of what happened in the moments before the shooting remain shrouded in secrecy, with the FBI refusing to release any information, citing an ongoing investigation.

Gruzdeva was Todashev’s roommate in Orlando.


Wesley Lowery of the Globe Staff contributed to this report. Nicholas Jacques can be reached at nicholas.jacques@Globe.com.