The Great Smoky Mountain Journal
Source:
Tuesday, January 01, 2019 02:42 PM
Father of Orlando Nightclub Killer Who Killed 49 People In 2016 Was FBI Informant For 11 Years
On Saturday, Assistant US Attorney Sara Sweeney sent the defense an email stating Seddique Mateen was a confidential FBI informant from 2005 through 2016; the email also revealed the elder Mateen is currently being investigated for transferring sums of money to Turkey and Afghanistan. These transfers came just a week before the deadly attack at Pulse nightclub.
Via CNN:
The revelation threatens to upend the case against Salman, the wife of Omar Mateen who is on trial for charges related to the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida in June 2016. Salman’s defense attorneys say the failure to disclose this information earlier violated her due process rights, and they argue that they would have taken a different legal strategy if they had known about this earlier.
Salman faces charges of providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and obstruction for justice, as prosecutors say she knew about the coming massacre. She has pleaded not guilty to the charges, and her defense team has cast her as a victim rather than an accomplice.
The revelations are damning, as Omar Mateen’s wife Noor Salman is being investigated for prior knowledge of her husband’s terror attack. Salman’s defense attorney has stated that had these money transfers been previously disclosed, they would have “investigated whether a tie existed between Seddique Mateen and his son, specifically whether Mateen’s father was involved in or had foreknowledge of the Pulse attack.”
The Orlando nightclub
shooter's dad – revealed to be an FBI informant – told authorities who
were investigating Omar Mateen before the attack that pro-terror
comments the would-be gunman made to coworkers were just examples of him
“being stupid," an agent testified Monday.
FBI Special Agent Juvenal Martin, who was on the stand in the terrorism
trial of Noor Salman, Omar Mateen’s wife, said Omar's father, Seddique,
had called him while his son was being investigated for the comments in
2006, a decade before the Pulse attack, and was upset.
Martin testified Seddique told him something like “if he had done those
things he was being stupid,” the Orlando Sentinel reported.
Martin said the FBI interviewed Omar two other times as part of that
investigation, but eventually determined he wasn't a security threat.
The bureau even considered turning Omar into a confidential informant
himself, according to Martin's testimony.
