2nd March, 2017
The widow of the gunman who killed dozens of people with a gun at a nightclub in Orlando, Florida has been granted bail, the report said on Thursday.
Magistrate Donna Ryu ruled at a court in California that the 31-year-old Noor Salman did not present a danger to the public or hold extremist views of her own.
The accused pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice, aiding and abetting her husband Omar Mateen.
Mateen had killed 49 people in the June attack and had pledged allegiance to Islamic State.
He was shot and killed by police.
“You’ve got people who are behind bars for selling marijuana, but she might be allowed free.
“How does that make any sense, this whole situation is heartbreaking. It’s going to make it hard to sleep at night again,’’ survivor Christopher Hansen said.
Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement he was “disappointed” by the decision but that he had “full faith that she will ultimately be brought to justice.”
The U.S. government has two days to appeal the decision.
Prosecutors said that Salman accompanied Mateen on scouting trips to the nightclub before the shooting and that the couple went on a 25,000-dollar spending spree in the days before the attack.
Salman was also made the death beneficiary of Mateen’s bank account.
Her mother and uncle have put up their houses to secure the 500,000-dollar bond and she will be made to wear an electronic monitoring tag.