ORLANDO (News Desk) – While the Sunday’s tragic shooting incident in Orlando, Florida, has attracted worldwide condemnation, more information about the attacker, who was identified as Omar Mateen by US officials, continues to pour in.
According to media reports, the shooter was a divorced US national of Afghan origin, who had an unhappy married life. His ex-wife named Sitora Yusufiy described him as an abusive, mentally unstable and disturbed person.
She alleged that Mateen used to torture her while she was his wife. “His harsh attitude and psychologically unstable personality led to our divorce in 2011,” she said in a brief media talk along with with her fiance Maurcio Diaz.
She went on to say that Mateen not only physically abused her but also expressed extreme hatred towards everything.
“I was rescued by my family just four months after our marriage in 2009 and the divorce case was settled in 2011,” she added.
Other media reports also revealed that Mateen worked as a security guard at G4S -a British multinational firm considered one of the world’s largest private security companies.
During his job with the security firm, he underwent screening and background checks twice – once in 2007, and again in 2013 – however the company cleared him on both occasions.
Another report claimed that America’s Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had also interviewed Mateen twice on the suspicion of extremist links, however he was cleared.
The first investigation was conducted in 2013 when Omar Mateen made some inflammatory remarks in a discussion with his co-workers. These comments, reportedly, indicated his sympathy for militants.
According to FBI special agent in charge Ron Hopper, in the two investigation FBI officials were “unable to verify the substance of his comments.”
About the father of Omar Mateen, a news report claimed that he calls himself president of Afghanistan and regularly addresses his fans in Afghanistan via video conference. He vows to overturn the incumbent Afghan government and bring about a revolution in the country.
Earlier on Sunday, Omar Mateen, stormed a packed homosexual nightclub in the city of Orlando in Florida, carrying a handgun and an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle. He killed at least 50 people, while wounding 53 others critically, before he was shot dead by security forces.
