Mateen’s wife knew of plan, tried to talk him out of it

Mateen’s ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, described a brief but violent relationship to a mentally-ill man whom she was only able to escape from through her family’s help. “He was trying to pick up people. Men”, he told the Associated Press, saying the man had once told him about his ex-wife.

“She definitely is, I guess you would say, a person of interest right now and appears to be co-operating and can provide us with some important information”.

An arrest is possible, but if she continues to cooperate with authorities, she may not be arrested, Karla Ray, WFTV reporter said.

Wielding an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle and a handgun, Mateen opened fire at the club early Sunday in a three-hour shooting rampage and hostage siege that ended with a SWAT team killing him. It was the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

But both of the investigations were closed, and Mateen – who would go on to call 911 and pledge allegiance to ISIS during his rampage – was not under investigation or surveillance at the time of the attack. The FBI said it is still gathering evidence at the Pulse and analysing mobile phone location data to piece together Mateen’s activities leading up to the massacre, while also interviewing people who had any dealings with him.

In Washington, President Barack Obama said investigators had no information to suggest a foreign terrorist group directed the attack.

US Attorney Lee Bentley declined to say whether Salman or any other associates of Mateen’s could face criminal charges.

“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”, Ty Smith said.

Smith said he had seen Mateen inside at least a dozen times.

In Washington, Sunday’s shooting in Florida stirred fresh debate on gun purchases in the United States, after it emerged that Mateen was legally able to buy an assault rile even though the FBI had investigated him in the past for possible ties to Islamist militant groups.

Federal Bureau of Investigation chief James Comey said his agents found no evidence that the attack had been directed from outside the United States, “and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network”.

The construction worker was looking forward to meeting friends at Pulse for another night of dancing – something he loved to do, friend Lorena Barragan told the Orlando Sentinel. The names of the dead were read aloud. Memorial services were scheduled for a number of churches in Orlando and a vigil was to be held Sunday evening.

Many said they felt compelled to attend because of the role Pulse played in their lives.

She told investigators her husband became radicalized over the past year. “I made peace with God”. When gunfijre erupted, “I felt like I was over in Iraq”, he said. He later discovered they died.

The owner of Pulse, speaking through a representative, denied reports that Mateen had been a regular patron of the nightclub. Obama said. “And then the terrorists would have won and we can not let that happen”. But Mina said he chose to send the SWAT team in and bash through a wall after Mateen holed up with hostages in a bathroom and talked about bombs and an explosive vest. “If someone seriously thinks we don’t know who we’re fighting, if there’s anyone out there who thinks we’re confused about who our enemies are, that would come as a surprise to the thousands of terrorists we’ve taken off the battlefield”. As it turned out, Mateen had no explosives with him.