Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Salman says Mateen abused her, records show
Records unsealed Wednesday in the case against Noor Salman shed new light on her defense, including the claim that her husband, Pulse shooter Omar Mateen, was so abusive she was afraid to question his actions leading up to the attack.
Salman is charged with aiding and abetting Mateen in planning the June 12, 2016 attack on the Pulse nightclub, which killed 49 people and injured 68. She also is charged with obstruction of justice. Jury selection is scheduled to begin today in Orlando’s federal courthouse.
The documents unsealed Wednesday detail how the defense plans to use an expert on false confessions to argue three statements Salman gave the day of the attack, including a confession, were not reliable.
“She is a highly suggestible individual to the types of interrogation tactics law enforcement almost always use to extract confessions from those they believe are guilty,” Dr. Bruce Frumpkin, a clinical psychologist, wrote in his report. “... She said that after hours of questioning with law enforcement telling her that they knew she aided her husband, and according to her, threats that her son would be taken away and would be raised in a ‘Christian home,’ she said she eventually relented and signed the statements so she could be allowed to go home.”
Salman spoke with an FBI investigator in the bureau’s Fort Pierce office the morning of June 12, 2016. The agent did not audio or video record her statements, but took notes and later asked her to read it over and initial each paragraph if it was accurate.
At first Salman said she did not know what her husband was planning, but eventually said she and her husband drove around Pulse for about 20 minutes during a visit to Orlando before the shooting.
Other documents released Wednesday detailed Salman’s domestic abuse evaluation, in which she said Mateen beat her while she was pregnant and sometimes threatened to kill her. Salman’s defense attorneys claim she did not question some of his behavior, like watching videos from the Islamic State terror group on his computer, because he was violent.
The evaluation required Salman to answer yes-or-no questions like, “Has he ever forced you to have sex when you did not wish to do so?” — yes, she said — and, “Has he ever used a weapon against you or threatened you with a lethal weapon?” — she said he had not.
It did not require her to provide details.
“Noor Salman is a severely abused woman who was in realistic fear for her life from her abusive husband,” wrote Jacquelyn Campbell, a nurse whom defense lawyers are offering as an expert in domestic violence and PTSD. “Her behavior was entirely consistent with severely abused women who are completely controlled by a highly abusive male partner.”
Prosecutors argued domestic abuse is not germane to the case.
“The defendant is not raising a defense that she was under duress when she aided and abetted her husband and is instead proceeding on the theory that she was unaware of his planned attack. With this theory of defense, her alleged abuse is not relevant,” prosecutors wrote in October, arguing that Campbell and Frumpkin should not be allowed to testify. The document was made public Wednesday.
U.S. District Judge Paul G. Byron ruled that jurors will be allowed to hear from Campbell and Frumpkin.
Police officers shot and killed Mateen three hours after he began his attack. Salman is the only person facing criminal charges related to the killings.