The father of the gunman in 2016’s Orlando nightclub shooting was reportedly working as an informant for the FBI for 11 years, a revelation that prompted a defense motion for a mistrial on behalf of the shooter’s widow.
Noor Salman is accused of helping her husband, Omar Mateen, plan his attack on the Pulse nightclub in Florida in June of 2016. The shooting was one of the worst in U.S. history, taking 49 lives and injuring 68 others before Mateen himself was shot to death.
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Salman’s attorneys called for a mistrial in court on Monday according to the Orlando Sentinel, after they said they learned for the first time about Seddique Mateen’s relationship with the bureau. Prosecutor Sara Sweeney reportedly told the defense about Mateen’s informant status in an e-mail on Sunday, saying that he had been an FBI source “at various points” between January of 2005 and June 2016.
In the same e-mail, Sweeney said that the FBI agents assigned to the shooting had discovered receipts for money transfers to Turkey and Afghanistan in the months leading up to the shooting.
Salman’s lawyers filed a motion to have the case dismissed. They said that they had never been told about Seddique’s covert job, and that the omission had changed the way they handled the trial.
“It is apparent from the Government’s belated disclosure that Ms. Salman has been defending a case without a complete set of facts and evidence that the Government was required to disclose,” attorney Fritz Scheller wrote. He added that if they’d known, they would have “investigated whether a tie existed between Seddique Mateen and his son, specifically whether [Omar] Mateen’s father was involved in or had foreknowledge of the Pulse attack.”
U.S. District Judge Paul Byron rejected the request. “This trial is not about Seddique Mateen. It’s about Noor Salman,” he said.
Seddique was reportedly on the prosecution’s witness list, though he was never called to testify. His wife, Shahla Mateen, did testify for the government.
Mateen had been investigated years before the shooting for making comments at work about connections to Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood. The investigation led nowhere, and Mateen later told law enforcement that he had lied because he felt harassed at work.
However, during the Pulse nightclub shooting, Mateen told the crisis negotiator that he was allied with the Islamic State group.
His 31-year-old widow is accused of aiding and abetting his actions, though her defense attorneys say that Salman has suffered immense domestic abuse, leading to PTSD.
Closing arguments in the case are expected on Wednesday, and Byron hopes for a verdict by the end of the week.
