One wonders if they would prosecute a man if the situation were reversed.
African Americans still do not have rights in this country. As a friend said the other day, allowing immigration into a country from a place of violence is taking a chance. There are millions of chances that something like this can happen.
Did the husband really frighten this woman the way she says? I believe her. I've seen middle eastern women in this city act as if they are abused women. Their husbands had so much power over them in their homelands. This power over woman does not change by them coming to the US.
Georgist:
Of course it is central to American law that females, especially married women have no will, and cannot understand anything about a crime that her male significant other is about to commit.
"Ms. Salman also accompanied Mr. Mateen to buy ammunition at Walmart, a purchase she has said was not unusual because he worked as a night security guard and needed the bullets." Umm, unless he was a night watchmen in a war zone, did he realy need to replenish his bullet supply on a regular basis?
3
If your abusive husband told you he would kill your child in front of you, would you really want to chance it with a guy who was obviously desperate and planning some final act anyway?
Also, think about the mindset of someone who cannot summon the nerve to try and escape a household where violence and injuries are routine (perhaps even to the kids), along with threats of even greater punishment if the abused person says anything about it. Would that person be your choice to rely on for betraying an abuser who might have made one last stop back at the house if his plans were disrupted?
Point is, we can imagine all sorts of thinking on the part of the woman, including motives good or bad or terrified, but why don't we just wait and find out? For those of us with heart conditions, our hearts aren't bleeding for crime to go unpunished; our metaphorical hemorrhaging is for the consequences of of deciding guilt or innocence from newspaper reports. If you were wrongly jailed (it happens), would you want your neighbors deciding how guilty you were even before the trial?
Abused and threatened individuals tend to identify with their abusers over time. It's a recognized delusion, it's powerful, and it goes by the term, Stockholm Syndrome. The main reasons for this this woman's trial are her ethnicity and the supposed link of her husband's rampage to ISIS. There are credible reports suggesting he was a repressed gay man, suggesting his last minute pledge to ISIS was cover for gay self-loathing. Of course, I'm not sure that's much better as far as the criminal justice system in Florida is concerned.
interesting this non-white woman might take heat for her husband's action
but not the white middle/upper class woman who was married to the older boston bomber - she lived in the same small apartment that they planned the bombing in - but she was never charged - never heard much about her after it all settled down - white skin and rich parents cleared her path
hey nyt = how about a little investigative journalism on her and how she got off. you could do a two part story - part two on ruth madoff - who (incredibly) was never charged
9
Ms. Salman is taking heat for her own actions. She made incriminating statements against herself. She is being prosecuted because of her actions. Not her race.
And the white middle/upper class woman was not prosecuted because she did not commit any crimes.
Why inject race into this? Of what benefit is it to denigrate the tens of thousands of people who work in our courts? Without any evidence. Without any reason to call them corrupt or incompetent or racist.
Should we go ahead and prosecute a white person to even the score? Just pick some random white woman and send her to jail to maintain parity?
1
From the quote, it doesn’t sound like she was fluent in English. When she allegedly said “i’d Go back” she could have been meaning to say “I wish I could go back”. Big difference because one quote indicates she knew, the other is a hypothetical “if I’d have know I wish I could go back and tell the cops what he was about to do.”
4
This seems like a straightforward case about Ms. Salman's criminal responsibility. But that is not true, as indicated by this short, but vital, paragraph:
"Under federal antiterrorism laws, prosecutors will have to prove that Ms. Salman knowingly participated in Mr. Mateen’s plans to provide material support to the Islamic State, a foreign terrorist organization."
This is not even remotely a standard accessory to murder case. This is a terrorism case. The government alleges that Ms. Salman was a terrorist, not an accessory to murder. If she is convicted, she can be sentenced to life in prison.
The law governing this case calls for conviction even if:
"there was no link between the material support she gave her husband and violent activity, just that she knew what was given was material support."
The charging statute has been attacked multiple times as unconstitutional, but has been upheld by the courts. People who believe in civil liberties should be concerned whether a wife who merely supports her husband's terrorist cause should be subject to life in prison. If this were a standard criminal case the evidence of aiding and abetting would have to be much stronger. And Ms. Salman's intent would have to be murderous. Here, she can be convicted for terrorist sentiment, apart from the murders. You may approve or disapprove. But you should know that these charges are very aggressive and push the limits of our civil liberties. This is a Guantanamo kind of case.
3
I don't know if she was battered or not. But if she was your normal lives (what you know, share, don't know, could know) is no measure of hers.
3
The correlations between domestic violence and mass shootings are very high. It's amazing to me how many people find her claims of abuse unbelievable. How is it so hard to believe that someone who killed over 50 people was abusive towards his wife? Does he really seem like such a good guy?
21
You have missed the point. Sexual abuse is frequently committed by respectable offenders. That's the whole point. Those who pass for respectable are often the worst offenders. Such abuse occurs in fancy neighborhoods as well as the not so fancy. It is here, there, and where you least expect it. Mass shooters may or may not be abusive. But pathological criminals and sexual abusers are two entirely distinct groups of offenders. If you associate sexual abuse with the worst of the worst, you miss the fact that it is often associated with what appears to be the best of the best.
Does the prosecution really make sense? Wouldn't she try to stop him rather than help him? He's the father of her child. She had to know this would put her in serious legal jeopardy and the kid would be traumatized once he learns who his father is.
I suppose the prosecution needs to acknowledge the spousal abuse because fear of the husband is the only thing that makes sense.
2
This young lady deserves a fair trial, no rush to judgement. Her rights were violated by her husband and the FBI. I refuse to condemn her at all until I hear her side.
God bless her.
11
The FBI did not violate her rights. Nowhere in the article is this fact found. It's just your opinion.
3
Not reading her Miranda rights to her when arresting or detaining her is violating her rights, so I beg to differ.
1
Questioning someone without a lawyer or reading Miranda Rights is shoddy police work. This case could get tossed just for that as it should. Always respect a person's legal rights to silence and representation, otherwise, guilty people will walk on a technicality. I believe this woman knew what her husband was planning, but they can always claim spousal abuse as a way out. It could be true, but for some reason, I doubt it in this case.
3
Miranda Rights would apply had she been questioned during a formal detention... which she had not. A police interview is not a detainment, her statements are admissible and the allowance into court record is a correct ruling by the judge.
As for spousal abuse as a door out of conviction, I am not so sure that will be a blanket protection. I am incredulous that most abused spouses would not see mass murder as a line in the sand, that they would act on in some way to prevent. She could have reached out anonymously any number of ways. And the defense is confusing. Are they implying that her abuse forced her into collaboration or that she never knew what was happening and so could not have acted to prevent it. The odd and nuanced deficits in her defense suggests serious problems with the her the veracity of her story.
3
Her Miranda was appropriately delivered prior her lie-detector test, when investigators moved to formalize the inquiry into her knowledge and/or involvement.
3
The problem I see is that she may be believed or get the benefit of the doubt that either she didn't know or was so frighten she was afraid to say anything prior to the shootings. But after the shootings? Then it was time to tell the truth as her husband was killed unless she also feared his family or some other connection he threatened her with.
2
She is cute .. not guilty !
1
Abused women seldom ask questions.
16
"Three years before the shooting, in 2013, the F.B.I. investigated Mr. Mateen after he told colleagues he was a member of Hezbollah, had family connections to Al Qaeda and wanted to die a martyr."
Those statements right there should get you put on a "cannot buy gun" list
40
.....and yet Hezbollah and Al Qaeda are completely different organizations. Hezbollah is Shi’a-centered, and Al Qaeda is anti-Shi’a. It sounds like he just wanted to sound important.
2
...not in Florida. Anyone can purchase a gun.
Who doesn’t lie to the FBI, it seems. Agents must find it impossible to live with themselves being so perfect.
1
Honest citizens.
If Ms. Salman knew about the attack before it occurred, and did nothing to stop it, she should be found guilty of a felony, and receive as harsh a penalty as the law allows.
If she was in any way complicit in the horrendous crime, she is guilty of a even more serious crime, and deserves as harsh a penalty as the law allows; if permitted by law, the death penalty is appropriate.
She should get her day in court. But if found guilty, justice must be done and severe penalty imposed.
49 people died. 53 additional people were wounded.
12
Under what theory of liability would she be guilty is she knew of a crime and did nothing? This "guilty bystander" proposition was even the subject of a Seinfeld episode.
What about Republican politicians and NRA lobbyists to whom they are beholden? They are the guilty ones: the heartless, conscienceless, sellout puppets and their puppet masters in NRA, who have created an environment where a person of interest like Omar Mateen, a sympathizer of terrorist organizations like ISIS, and a self-proclaimed member of Hezbollah who professed to a colleague that he wanted to die a martyr, could go on a shopping trip and buy AK 15 rifles and ammunition!!
Imagine buying a rifle that has the same lethal power as a military weapon, and bullets as if he were buying grocery items like milk and bread. And he could buy as many rifles as he wanted, on credit card, if he didn't have the cash for it, just like chicken legs or ham or butter, or potatoes. Don't you see anything immoral with that?
Jesus would not support NRA.
Alex, these politicians, and NRA have so much blood on their hand that you can fill Hoover dam with it. Unless this culture changes, nothing will change, even convicting an abused woman who was married to a mad mass killer.
3
Several people called the police and the FBI before Parkland. Did it change anything??
6
I hope she is severely punished.
7
For her husband’s sin. God bless women !
1
Battered woman and a minority and a Muslim.
A liberal trifecta!
We cannot possibly find her guilty!!!!
2
Well liberals are fans of due process generally. Messy, longer process, but constitutional last I checked.
1
Battered and a female muslim in America is not where you would want anyone you love to be. By definition , from your reasoning, Republicans hate/loathe battered women and muslims? Just trying to see where your head is at .
1
"I know nothing... nothing"! Sgt. Schultz of Hogan's Heroes fame, and now Noor Saalman. Both liars, and not too good at it to boot.
6
Does she have proof she was abused? A photo of a black eye or bruises? Paperwork supporting she sought medical attention for injuries? Paperwork supporting visit(s) to domestic violence counselors or shelters? Without objective evidence, it will be hard for her to assert reliably that Mateen abused her.
She is an educated woman and seems sufficiently sophisticated to understand how things work in US. I do not buy the "I am a Muslim woman unknowing of America" ruse that she has concocted. I don't know if the prosecution can make an aiding and abetting case but lying to the FBI (a serious charge) may be the easier case. I have zero sympathy for her.
10
This reminds me of all those who, with cold logic in the harsh light of an impassive Monday morning, coldly dissect what a rape victim should have done - had they been there because you know, they aren't human beings, but logic machines who always know what to do in the moment without a measure of doubt.
There are those who not only want to prosecute the facts but sit in judgement of others measured to their imaginary selves, like Trump saying he would have *run* in unarmed.
8
So if you speak english and you are pretty, you can't be in an abusive relationship? Go to most Women's Shelters and you will seldom see immigrant women. They are shamed into being submissive and are usually disowned by their family( which is usually the husbands if they take the family business outside/to strangers. So they shut up and put up with it, especially if they have children .
2
Who knows how this case will turn out, but it would be interesting to hear Ms. Salman's thoughts about the spending spree before the shooting. Suddenly charging 25 grand on a card while earning a minimal wage is a pretty good sign of knowing that some type of life-changing event was going to happen, not to mention being added to a bank account as a beneficiary. What did she think that was? That could be a valuable point for the prosecutor.
44
I'm astounded to see how people impulsively rush to judgement, one way or the other, because they can't hold back the first thoughts that come to mind. Often based on pre-conceived notions and their own particular viewpoint. Why don't more people say "This tragedy must be thoroughly investigated. But it's way too early to draw conclusions - we need to discover and weigh all the evidence before passing judgement."?
42
We Americans have no patience. Immediacy is what we relish. Look into facts? No time for that. That's how tRump became president.
7
All of those purchases, withdrawals, what did she know?
18
Portraying herself as a victim is an insult to the families of the people her husband slaughtered. She will have her day in court and will learn that in this country she must provide evidence to refute the charges I`m sure her defense attorney will have a strategy.
24
Aren't accused people supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in this country, not the reverse?
1
I sure hope that's not how it works in this country. You need evidence to prove guilt, not to prove innocence.
She will not learn "that in this country she must provide evidence to refute the charges" because that is not her burden. The government must provide the evidence to prove the charges beyond a reasonable doubt. She does not have to prove anything. She is innocent until proven guilty.
Easier said than done from the outside. It takes great courage to call the authorities on an abusive husband specially when you grew up in a culture where you are always told to "listen to your husband, obey him and do as you are told". She might not have any role to play in the mass shooting other than not reporting but questioning and trying her in the court of law will send a message to all the women like her to "say something when they see something".
30
She was born and bred in California.
Not exactly another culture.
3
The country you are born has very little or nothing to do with your culture. If that was the case then Great Britain would not have any home grown terrorists.
Do we know for certain the he abused her, or are we supposed to take her word? (She's already confessed to driving with him on a "scouting" trip).
13
Whether she is guilty or not will be decided by a jury. We have a due process. Certain red flags, e.g, no direct evidence of her involvement, a victim of the spousal abuse, genuine fear of the murderer about her life and the life of her child, and not being read her Miranda rights, etc., may be enough for her acquittal.
But all this is beside the point that even if she is convicted, none of the victims are coming back to life, and gun laws in this country will not change because as the POTUS said yesterday to Republican elected officials: "You are afraid of NRA."
It may turn out to be another dog and pony show that something was done on behalf of the victims, like the fake prayers of the NRA beholden politicians like Marco Rubio who blabber after every mass shooting in America and then go on to vote against every sensible gun control legislation.
23
No Miranda was required when she was initially interviewed. Miranda is required only when the person being interviewed is detained and not free to leave. That condition in her initial interview did not exist. Her lawyers, I am sure, tried to get that statement excluded but it wasn't for the right legal reasons. It's a damaging statement and making the argument that she wasn't Mirandized is a common, though feeble, defense tactic which rarely succeeds and didn't in this case.
6
They never went after Katherine Russell, the wife and sister-in-law of Boston Marathon bombers, Tsarnaev brothers. Although she must have well knew what they were doing, as they openly constructed bombs on the kitchen table of their small, Cambridge apartment. She was whisked away into obscurity to the estate of her well off parent's estate in Rhode Island. Hardly ever to be heard about ever again.
57
False: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2316799/Katherine-Russell-FBI-ag...
2
I agree about Katherine Russell, suspect that her family's wealth insulated her from any consequences of that. However, I don't believe there was much detail given about where the bombs were assembled. That was strange.
1
She knew.
Her well off parents lawyered up big time to protect her.
2
For those saying we wouldn't be going after her if she was white- remember, most mass shooters are teenagers and don't have wives.
11
Most mass shooters are NOT teenagers. Some, but not all, school shootings are carried out by teens, but there have been plenty of others, such as by disgruntled workers, carried out by adult men. Even the Parkland shooting was carried out by a 19year old.
She looks white to me. Do you mean, Muslim?
"The FBI said ... that she later confessed to agents that she had joined Mr. Mateen on a trip to ... the nightclub."
The FBI thinks that it's illegal for a wife to accompany her husband to a nightclub?
Shame.
7
Dan, "Prosecutors have said that Ms. Salman... confessed to agents that she had joined Mr. Mateen on a trip to scout the nightclub as a possible target." It is easily understandable English. Not just a trip to a nightclub, but a trip to scout out a nightclub to attack. And that is what that animal did and she is allegedly complicit.
4
John:
Granted that Mateen was scouting the nightclub as a possible target. Granted that his wife accompanied him.
It still doesn't follow that the wife was "an animal" or that she did anything wrong whatsoever.
I do, however, want to thank you for the phrase "allegedly" complicit. The FBI has alleged many things which turned out to be false:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wen_Ho_Lee
1
Where did they find the 9,000 in jewelry?
6
My tolerance stops at ideologies of no tolerance.
She has a lot to answer for. There's an excellent case to be made that she knew of his plans and at the very least condoned them. Much evidence points to her actively supporting his "efforts".
When we talk about his "efforts," remember, that's a pretty euphemism for "murdering 50 innocent people because you think God's given you the right."
Even if she were abused - which is uncertain - she could still pick up the phone and call the appropriate people, but instead, at the very least, she kept here mouth shut while he methodically murdered 50 innocent people.
64
And wounded another 50.
9
"Much evidence points to her actively supporting his "efforts"."....
Wait! The trial hasn't happened yet and you've seen the evidence? Maybe you could share that with the rest of us......
11
If she’d told authorities what her husband was planning, what social services would have protected her and supported her and their son? If her husband had been arrested prior to the attack, he could only be held for so long, and then he’d be free to possibly abuse her for her having reported him. No doubt she feared that.
Note that people did warn authorities prior to the recent Florida shooting and nothing was done.
46
She could have gone to family in San Francisco.
7
At some point, the law and morality require you to act. Even if you will be financially worse off. Even if you have to enter a DV shelter. I'm very sympathetic to abused women, but 50 lives were at stake here. Being aware of what she was risking is reason to improve our resources for DV victims, not reasons to excuse her inaction.
4
Yeah, because it's really easy for an abused woman to flee cross country with a child. /sarcasm.
2
It's pretty obvious that this is a weak case because the wife is obviously a battered woman, terrified of her own husband for abusing her. Plus she was not read her rights. No Bonnie & Clyde here.
31
You were there PAG? You know for a fact she was a battered woman? Where is the proof?
13
I can’t recall the wife of any white mass shooter being tried for aiding and abetting. This is racism pure and simple. If her name was Sharon we’d be helping her recover from this abusive loser.
71
There is a lot of attention and sympathy given to his abused EX-wife, which seems to contradict your claim.
4
There is a significant difference between "I can't recall" and "I have thoroughly researched this (citations provided)".
6
That's pure liberal gobbledygook
2
Lynch mob justice does not take account of people who are innocent.
17
The prosecution of Mr Mateen's wife, Ms. Salam undermines family values. When family comes first our families are stronger and our community stronger. We need to preserve the husband wife privilege and sanctity no matter hwat they talk about. Religious values are again under attack in this anit-Muslim prosecution of a stay at home mother. If America is about sending victims of abuse to prison then this country is very bad.
7
So, is plotting and carrying out mass murder of gay people a family value or a Muslim value?
8
Exactly where in law are communications between a husband and wife deemed "privileged"?
If a person is aware of another's intent to commit mass murder, that person has a legal duty to inform the authorities. Relationships play no role in mitigating that duty.
8
If she assisted him in carrying out this violence, she is a criminal.
There is no husband/wife privilege that protects her from being prosecuted for her crime or conspiring to commit a crime.
By the way, that privilege only means a person cannot be compelled to testify against a spouse.
9
Our lawmakers knew _a_ shooting is coming, and did nothing. Morally, they're no less culpable than the abused widow.
18