The FBI arrested Noor Salman, the wife of the man who opened fire in Orlando, Florida’s Pulse nightclub last June and killed 49, Monday morning in the San Francisco Bay Area, an FBI spokesman told The Huffington Post.
Salman was taken into custody in connection with the shooting on charges of aiding and abetting by providing material support to a terror group and obstructing justice.
“Federal authorities have been working tirelessly on this case for more than seven months, and we are grateful that they have seen to it that some measure of justice will be served,” Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in a statement.
Salman is scheduled to appear in federal court in Oakland, California, at 9:30 am. Tuesday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.
Beginning in April up until the date of the attack, Salman “did knowingly aid and abet Omar Mateen’s attempted provision and provision of ‘material support or resources’” to the so-called Islamic State, according to court documents. She also misled police officers and FBI agents to prevent them from relaying information about the attack to federal agents.
FBI agents had questioned Salman for hours after the shooting, The New York Times reported in November. She told them she had been with her husband, Omar Mateen, when he purchased ammunition and scouted the club’s location prior to the attack.
Mateen was killed in a shootout with police following the hourslong standoff inside the club.
He had pledged loyalty to the so-called Islamic State group, officials announced after the tragedy. Calls between him and police released in October revealed that American military activity in the Middle East was a motive in the shooting.
“You have to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. They’re killing a lot of innocent people so what am I to do here when my people are getting killed over there. You get what I’m saying?” Mateen had said on the phone to police during the standoff.
This post has been updated with more detail on the charges against Salman.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated Mateen killed 50 people. He killed 49.