The widow of the Pulse nightclub gunman told FBI investigators that she wished she had been “more truthful” with agents about his early warning signs.
“I wish I had done the right thing but my fear held me back,” explained Noor Salman.
The show of remorse came just days after her husband, Omar Mateen, went on his mass shooting spree in 2016, slaughtering 49 people and wounding dozens more in the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, according to reports.
It was one of at least three instances where Salman — who is on trial for aiding and abetting Mateen — allegedly spoke to police about some of the red flags she noticed in the weeks and months leading up to the massacre.
Ricardo Enriquez, an FBI special agent, transcribed her statements and recounted them in court Monday.
“I am sorry for what happened,” Salman said. “I was in denial because I could not believe that the father of my child would do this.”
The 31-year-old claimed that one of the reasons she didn’t speak up about her husband’s plans was that she didn’t want her in-laws to “hate” her.
“I wish I’d go back and tell his family and the police what he was going to do,” she said, noting how Mateen regularly watched ISIS beheading videos and talked about being a terrorist.
“What would make people more upset, an attack at Disney or a nightclub?” Salman recalled her husband asking.
“I saw this as a ‘green light’ for (Mateen) to do great violence,” she said in her statement. “I knew he was going to do something.”
Enriquez told jurors that Salman initially tried to claim she wasn’t aware of any attack plans or warning signs, but said her story eventually changed after being questioned further.
“I said, ‘You know, Noor, I realize that you knew what was going on. You knew,’” Enriquez testified. “She said, ‘No I didn’t.’”
The FBI agent told her to reread her three statements to police — which she initialed and approved — and pressed her again.
“She began to cry, and said, ‘I knew,’” remembered Enriquez.
Salman’s lawyer, Linda Moreno, said in opening statements that FBI investigators had coerced her into “adopting their narrative” after 11 hours of interrogation. She pointed out how no audio or video recordings were made during the conversations with agents.
“Omar Mateen is a monster,” Moreno said. “Noor Salman is a mother, not a monster. Her only sin is she married a monster.”
