BLACK WIDOW BUST
‘Aided’ hubby’s Orlando massacre
The widow of the jihadi who massacred 49 clubgoers in Orlando, Fla., was busted on Monday for helping her husband plot the worst mass shooting in US history, federal officials said.
Noor Salman, 30, was taken into custody by FBI agents at her home outside of San Francisco, Attorney General Loretta Lynch confirmed.
“We said from the beginning we were going to look at every aspect of this case, every aspect of this shooter’s life to determine not just why did he take these actions, but who else knew about them, was anyone else involved, is there any other accountability that needs to be had here in this case,” Lynch said.
Prosecutors had been considering charges against Salman (inset above, left) since her husband Omar Mateen’s (inset above, right) attack at the packed gay nightclub Pulse, which wounded at least 53 others on June 12. The ISIS-inspired gunman, 29, was killed in a shootout with cops.
Salman was charged with obstruction of justice and aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terrorist organization, and will appear in federal court in Oakland Tuesday morning before her case is transferred back to Florida.
“I am glad to see that Omar Mateen’s wife has been charged with aiding her husband in the commission of the brutal attack on the Pulse nightclub,” Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement.
“Federal authorities have been working tirelessly on this case for more than seven months and we are grateful that they have seen to it that some measure of justice will be served in this act of terror that has affected our community so deeply.”
Cops and the feds concluded Salman was lying about how much she knew of her husband’s plans, with one report saying she went shopping with him for ammo and a holster before the killings.
She said she did not question him about owning a gun because he worked as a security guard.
She also admitted that she knew he had watched jihadist videos, but thought he was harmless because the FBI had interviewed him in 2013 after he boasted to coworkers that he had ties to al Qaeda. The FBI is reviewing its interactions with him to learn how he slipped through its fingers.
Salman’s relatives declined to comment when a reporter from NBC Bay Area knocked on the door of her family’s home on Monday.
There was no sign of a police presence on Monday morning, but authorities said Salman was taken into custody at 8:13 a.m. and was being held without bail at Santa Rita Jail.
The FBI had been to her home in the town of Rodeo before, NBC reported.
Salman told The New York Times in November that she was “unaware of everything” her husband had been planning.
“I don’t condone what he has done,” she said then. “I am very sorry for what has happened. He has hurt a lot of people.”
Salman also said her husband was violent and had beaten her.
In June, a source close to the family told NBC that Mateen had sent her a text message during the killing spree, asking, “Do you see what’s happening?”
She replied, “No,” and he followed up by texting, “I love you babe.”
Mateen then pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 call during the standoff.
According to neighbors, Salman attended John Swett HS in nearby Crockett, Calif. She and Mateen moved to Florida about five years ago, they said.
Salman has a 4-year-old child and has filed court documents to change the boy’s name.