USA Today reports:
A handwritten statement given to the FBI by the wife of Pulse nightclub gunman Omar Mateen says she saw him prepare for the deadly attack for months and knew that the LGBT nightclub was his target.
The 12-page statement, quietly released by federal authorities at the end of December in a batch of records in the case, was taken hours after the June 12, 2016 shooting. The attack left 49 dead and dozens of others injured. Noor Salman was questioned for hours, without a lawyer, after authorities learned her husband was the gunman behind the attack.
She was arrested last year on federal charges of providing material support to a terrorist and tampering with evidence but has pleaded not guilty, claiming she was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder. She said Mateen abused her and claims she did not know of his plot.
But her defense conflicts with the signed statement she gave to the FBI, which details her knowledge of Mateen’s planning and his path to carry out an attack on behalf of the Islamic State.
“I knew when he left the house he was going to Orlando to attack the Pulse Night Club,” Salman said, according to a statement written by an FBI agent and signed by Salman during the 18-hour interview.
Noor Salman’s attorneys argued that everything she told the FBI in the hours after the attack should be excluded from trial because she was in custody and not given proper Miranda warnings. US attorneys argued that she was not in custody, free to leave at any time, and that all her statements were voluntary.