Jihadi gun man ‘went to gay club regularly to pick up men’
Wife faces charges after admitting she knew of terror plot
THE Islamic State-inspired gunman who shot 49 dead in an Orlando gay club was homosexual and regularly visited the venue, it was claimed yesterday.
Omar Mateen, 29, reportedly led a bizarre double life, hiding from his Muslim family and security guard colleagues that he frequently went out drinking to pick up men.
The possibility that he targeted fellow homosexuals in an act of self-loathing seemed more likely last night, after it emerged he had scouted a nearby Walt Disney World site during a gay festival.
Between June 1 and June 6, Mateen visited both the Pulse nightclub – the scene of the massacre in the early hours of Sunday – and the Disney Springs shopping and entertainment complex.
Both were celebrating the Florida city’s Gay Days festival at the time, and investigators are convinced Mateen was weighing them up as possible targets.
Mateen had also visited Walt Disney World on April 26 with his second wife, Noor Zahi Salman, and their three-yearold son. FBI sources last night revealed that 30-year-old Salman, who is cooperating with their inquiries, claimed she knew of her husband’s horrific plan in advance and tried to talk him out of it.
However, she admits she did not warn the authorities – and could face charges.
She also reportedly said she was with Mateen when he bought his ammunition and holster, and that she had driven him to Pulse and Walt Disney World ‘because he wanted to scope them out’.
On Monday night, covering her face and accompanied by her son and police, Salman visited the flat she shared with Mateen in Fort Pierce, Florida, to collect a bag of possessions.
The gunman’s father, Seddique Mateen, maintains that he had no idea what his son was planning.
Barack Obama last night denounced Donald Trump for his rhetoric in the aftermath of the massacre, in which 53 were injured. The Republican US presidential hopeful called for a ban on immigration from all states with a ‘history of terrorism’.
President Obama said Mr Trump was peddling a ‘dangerous’ mindset that recalled the darkest periods in American history.
Yesterday injured victim Patience Carter, 20, described how she stayed on the ground of the ladies’ toilets ‘for hours and hours’ during the rampage. Speaking from the Orlando Regional Medical Center, she said: ‘Blood was everywhere ... He wasn’t going to stop killing people until he was killed.’
A string of regulars at Pulse say Mateen had been visiting the club for as long as three years. He contacted at least two men he met there on gay dating apps – but he had a reputation as ‘ creepy’. There is evidence that Mateen, the US-born son of Afghan immigrants, was a self- radicalised extremist who pledged allegiance to IS on the night of the massacre. He is thought to have viewed extreme Islamist material online.
IS is violently anti-gay, hurling homosexuals off buildings in Syria and Iraq. Even Mateen’s father has revealed his own homophobia, saying in a video released after the killings that ‘homosexuals will be punished by God’.
The gunman’s first wife Sitora Yusifiy, 27, said she did not know if he was gay. But her current fiance, Marcio Dias, told a Brazilian TV station that Miss Yusifiy had told him Mateen had ‘gay tendencies’ and that the killer’s father had called him gay in front of her.
Kevin West, a regular at Pulse, said Mateen had sent him mes- sages on gay dating app Jack’d, asking questions such as ‘what clubs were popping’. He said he ran into Mateen near Pulse at 1am on Sunday – just an hour before the shooting started – and they exchanged brief greetings.
Another regular, Jim Van Horn, said: ‘He used to come in the bar, on a weekend sometime ... everybody knew his name – Omar.
‘He was trying to pick up men. He would walk up to them and maybe put his arm around them, maybe get them to dance a little bit or something, and buy them a drink.’
Clubber Ty Smith said: ‘Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent.’
On one occasion Mateen was said to have pulled out a knife when someone joked about religion.
A former classmate at a community college where Mateen studied towards becoming a policeman in 2006 said they regularly went to gay bars. The man, who asked not to be named, claimed Mateen had even asked him out romantically.