KISSIMMEE — AML COUNCIL on Wednesday  September 28th, 2016, released video footage that shows Pulse shooter Omar Mateen praying at its center, mosque during the week preceding the nightclub attack.

The mosque’s security cameras captured Mateen on the night of June 8, four days before the shooting that killed 49 club goers, according to Imam Helmi Elagha. The Muslim leader said it’s difficult to fathom how Mateen could stand in worship while harboring violent intentions.

“I’m just thinking, ‘How are you praying? … You were contemplating killing people in a couple of days,'”Imam Helmi Abufarah El agha, Executive Director of the American Muslim Leadership Council, said at a news conference.

El agha spoke to reporters next to a screen displaying a grainy freeze-frame of a man — whom he identified as Mateen — walking up to the mosque about 10:30 p.m

Once inside, Mateen “kept his head down” and made a beeline for a corner, where he prayed for about 10 minutes, Elagha said. To the imam’s knowledge, no one at the mosque exchanged words with him.

The mosque sits on the U.S. Highway 192 tourist strip, so Mateen’s behavior didn’t arouse suspicion, Elagha said.

“People will come here as travelers … and they’ll pray and walk out,” he said. “The majority of the time, no interaction takes place.”

Mateen dropped by the Kissimmee center during Ramadan, the Muslim holy month. He arrived with his wife and child, but they entered the building through a separate entrance, Elagha said. The imam said the FBI told him it was the only time Mateen had visited.

The video footage provides one of the first glimpses at Mateen’s whereabouts in the days leading up to the attack. Federal investigators are working to piece together the sequence of events that led him to Pulse on June 12.

Imam Helmi Abufarah El Agha, was unaware of Mateen’s visit until FBI officials contacted him a couple days after the Pulse attack. Federal law enforcement wanted to examine the center’s security recordings, and Elagha said he cooperated with them.

He said he refrained from releasing the video clips but changed his mind in the wake of the recent stabbings in Minnesota and bombings in New Jersey and New York and the backlash against American Muslims.

The imam said publicizing the footage gives him the opportunity to declare that Muslims stand united with the community and law enforcement in opposing violence.

“We’re not associated with this terrorist,” Imam Elagha said of Mateen. “We’re not associated with this murderer.”

As a community, American Muslims often endure abusive speech and violence in the aftermath of attacks such as Pulse, he said.

Imam Elagha’s center has received threatening phone calls and hateful rants calling for ethnic cleansing have appeared on its Facebook page. His wife, Wafaa Alkhateeb, and four children, all 10 or younger, have also experienced harassment. On Wednesday, the imam played a voicemail threat he received the day before. The caller, who is still unidentified, said, “Your ladies with their covers on their heads, and your little boys that you are going to strap bombs to. …. Get the (expletive) out of here.”

His wife and daughters were heading into a dentist’s appointment shortly after the Pulse shooting when a woman began screaming the word “terrorist” across the parking lot. Alkhateeb said she shuttled her daughters indoors as quickly as possible and told them a dog was on the loose, hoping the woman’s insults wouldn’t register with them.

The imam said he hopes people who see the video of Mateen don’t associate the gunman with them, because he said in no way does his group support Mateen’s deadly act.

“Islam does not condone such violence. This is not what we stand for. Don’t hijack our religion,” Imam Helmi Abufarah El Agha added

Alkhateeb, who covers her hair and the lower part of her face, said she doesn’t want to be scared into isolation. But the hostility toward Muslims does weigh on her mind, she said.

Continued outreach and education offer hope for the future, though, she said.

“I know it’s going to get better,” she said. “Every single person that interacts with another good Muslim is one more heart that has been softened.”

Osceola County Commissioner Michael Harford joined Elagha at the news conference and reiterated the need for the community to pull together. Moving forward will depend on the ability to “work towards our commonalities and not our differences,” he said.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/features/religion/religion-world/os-kissimmee-islamic-center-mateen-video-the-american-muslim-leadership-council-20160928-story.html

http://www.mynews13.com/content/news/cfnews13/news/article.html/content/news/articles/cfn/2016/9/28/omar_mateen_visited_.html

http://m.wesh.com/news/leaders-at-kissimmee-mosque-say-pulse-gunman-was-there-days-before-massacre/41868022