‘PILLOW TALK’ NO DEFENSE
Arrest shows feds willing to get tough on terror wives
The arrest of Noor Salman comes seven months after her terrorist husband, Omar Mateen, killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub and just two months after she spoke to The New York Times, a move former federal prosecutor Lauren Coates said could have hurt her case.
“I’m wondering if that was in fact what sparked the FBI’s interest. By her speaking out publicly and condemning his actions, I wonder if any other statements she made to the press alerted them to things she may have known,” said Coates, a CNN legal analyst.
Salman told the Times she had no involvement in the deadly June attack and didn’t know of her husband’s evil plan. She said she went with him to buy ammunition and scout the club but didn’t think it was suspicious.
“I was unaware of everything,” she told the newspaper. “I don’t condone what he has done.”
But the FBI didn’t buy it. And Salman, the mother of a 4-yearold son with Mateen, is set to appear in court today, charged with obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization.
“They must have information about whether or not she was in a position to prevent the attack and did nothing,” Coates said.
In most states, spousal privilege relates to “pillow talk” between partners, Coates said, but if it involves a third party or it’s written in some way, it’s excluded from that protection. On the night of the deadly rampage, police said Salman and Mateen exchanged texts. He reportedly asked his wife, “Do you see what’s happening?” and told her, “I love you, babe.”
“Terrorism or not, the law is pretty clear,” Coates said. “If you’re in a position to stop a crime, and you’re in the planning stages of any type of crime, than you have a duty to try to prevent it.”
Salman claims she was abused by her husband. But in a mass shooting case, Coates said the sympathy factor before a grand jury could be outweighed by “the number of victims and the number of other people whose lives could have been saved.”
“It’s something to point out but it’s not something that would exonerate her,” Coates said.
Closer to home, Katherine Russell, widow of Boston Marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, was never charged in connection with the deadly 2013 blasts. Tamerlan and his terrorist brother Dzhokhar made the bombs in their cramped Cambridge apartment, where Russell and their daughter lived. On her computer, Russell searched “rewards for wife of mujahideen” and rewards for being a martyr’s wife, the feds said.
Now, she’s living in another state, raising her daughter.
As the nation grapples with terrorism, spousal privilege is no longer iron clad in court.