Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen “quit-claimed” his house to his brother-in-law with his wife Noor Salman as a witness in April. Initial reports showed $10 for consideration of the house, but a closer look at the document shows it at $100.
Did Mateen’s family know more about his plans than they let on? The FBI has already toyed with the idea of charging his wife since she never told law enforcement of his desire to commit a terrorist attack on American soil.
A quitclaim deed allows a grantor to transfer interest in a property to the grantee. The deed is quite common in divorce cases. It is an active transfer, which means he transferred the property on that day to his brother-in-law Mustafa Abasin and sister Sabrina Abasin.
Another suspicious note is the address below Mateen’s name. He listed an apartment in Fort Pierce, located about 14 miles north from Fort St. Lucie and 120 miles south of Orlando. This means he already had another residence at the time.
The witnesses include his wife Salman and a woman named Mary Seddique, Mateen’s other sister.
The FBI has interviewed Salman and gave her a polygraph test, but no one has released details of the test. Sen. Angus King (I-ME) told CNN Wolf Blitzer that the FBI continues to speak with the Salman:
“It appears she has some knowledge of what was going on, visiting some of the other sites. We don’t know whether she was involved and knew about the purchase of the guns, which took place only about a week before the attack,” King said. “But she definitely is, I guess you would say, a person of interest right now and appears to be cooperating and can provide us with some important information on who this guy is, what his motivations were and what his plans were.”
She claimed that Mateen “assured her he was simply going to see friends, although she believed he was actually planning to unleash terror at the Pulse nightclub.” She once drove him to the club, a one to two hour drive from their home in St. Lucie, “to scope it out.” Mateen also visited Disney in April and early in June. Salman said they visited Disney World in April as a family, but officials believe that Mateen used these trips to case the amusement park.
She also went with him to buy “ammunition and a holster.”
Two hours after the attack, Mateen sent text messages to “Salman, asking if she’d seen the news.” In one text she said she loved him and even tried calling him. He never answered her calls. Officials have not said if she tried to contact police after Mateen contacted her.
The FBI has expanded the investigation into all of Mateen’s family, including those in Afghanistan. The Durand Jirga, Mateen’s father’s pro-Taliban group, lists Mustafa as a founding director and Sabrina also sits on the board.
Mustafa has similar views to his father-in-law:
In a paper he recently posted in Farsi, Abasin criticizes Afghans who have adopted American culture, according to an English translation by CounterJihad.com. He also rails against tribal chiefs who do not speak out against democracy in Afghanistan.In recent social media posts, Abasin blames guns for his brother-in-law’s shooting, calls presumptive GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump a “racist” for wanting to restrict Muslim immigration, and says he’s involved with working with “refugee camps.” It’s not clear if the refugees include the displaced Syrian nationals the Obama administration is resettling in U.S. cities.
Mateen’s father Seddique praised the Taliban in his native Afghanistan and pretends to be the Afghani president. At first, he condemned homosexuals, saying that “God will punish those involved” and “not an issue that humans should deal with.” He walked back his comments when CBS News reached out to him.
After the massacre, Seddique said his son did not slaughter over 50 people because of their religion. He claimed his son “got angry” when he saw two men kissing Miami. Mateen expressed disgust with the action, especially since he had his son with him.
[Featured image from St. Lucie County Public Records]
*A zero was left out in error, but has since been corrected.
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