FBI questions member of mosque attended by Orlando gunman
Nevertheless, Mateen appears to have been ‘self-radicalised’ and acting without any direction from outside.
private security guard shot dead by police at the end of the 12 June massacre in Orlando, has been described by his first wife — whom he divorced after a brief marriage — as an abusive, mentally disturbed man with a violent temper.
Others who knew him recalled Mateen, a US citizen and Florida resident born in New York to Afghan immigrants, as a quiet, socially awkward individual who kept largely to himself.
The FBI has acknowledged interviewing Mateen in 2013 and 2014 for suspected ties to Islamist militant groups but concluded he posed no threat. Still, evidence in the Orlando case points to a crime at least inspired by extremist ideology.
Authorities have said Mateen paused a number of times during his three-hour siege at the Pulse nightclub to place cell phone calls to emergency 911 dispatchers and to post internet messages professing support for various Islamist militant groups.
Nevertheless, Mateen appears to have been “self-radicalised” and acting without any direction from outside networks, although his second wife, Noor Salman, had known of his plans to carry out the attack, US officials have said.
A federal grand jury was convened earlier in the week to decide whether to charge Salman.
FBI agents turned their attention on Friday to at least one of Mateen’s fellow worshipers at the mosque he attended near his home, the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce.
In what was the first such known interview in connection with the nightclub shooting, two federal agents met with the man at the mosque for about 30 minutes ahead of Friday prayers, according to Omar Saleh, a lawyer for the Council of American-Islamic Relations who sat in on the session.
“We were meeting with some agents,” Saleh told Reuters, declining to identify the person interviewed. “They were asking questions relative to the incident that happened on Sunday.”