'He beat me': Omar Mateen's ex-wife
The ex-wife of the 29-year-old man who is suspected of slaughtering at least 50 people at a Florida nightclub says he was violent and mentally unstable.
The woman said she met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and they decided to get married and move in together in Fort Pierce, Florida, in March 2009.
The marriage was normal at first, she says, but then he became abusive.
She says she left him in 2011, fearing for her life.
"He was not a stable person," the ex-wife told the Washington Post, which did not identify her because she fears for her safety.
"He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn't finished or something like that," she told the Post.
The woman's parents later rescued her from the relationship and the pair were later divorced, according to a court document seen by AFP.
Mateen's ex-wife described him a "private person" who was not especially expressive about his Muslim faith.
She said his family was from Afghanistan, but her ex-husband was born in New York.
Meanwhile, US law enforcement is investigating whether he had links to - or was inspired by - Islamist terrorism.
US media, citing law enforcement sources, reported that he called police during the massacre to claim allegiance to the Islamic State group.
But relatives interviewed by US media say Mateen, who worked as a security officer, was not overly religious but had anti-gay views and had regularly assaulted his ex-wife.
Mateen's shocked father, Mir Seddique, said his son had recently been offended to see two gay men expressing affection on a Miami street.
"We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music," the father told NBC News in the immediate aftermath if the shooting.
"And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry," Seddique said.
The attack, which became the worst mass shooting in modern US history, was carried out in the Pulse nightclub, a well-known gay hangout.
"We are in shock like the whole country," Seddique added. "This had nothing to do with religion."
A report by the Daily Beast website, citing FBI sources, says Mateen was investigated twice for possible extremist links in 2013 and 2014 but never prosecuted.
According to the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services website, he had a gun license set to expire in September of next year.
