What’s more, CAIR’s legal counsel and communications director for its Florida chapter is acting as the official spokesman for the Islamic Center of Fort Pierce. The CAIR official, Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, has minimized Mateen’s involvement in the mosque, claiming he was a fringe member who was quiet and kept to himself.
“He was very unusual,” Ruiz
told the local press. “After Fridaynoon prayers, the older people stay and socialize. He did so very few times.”
CAIR’s Saleh agreed: “He was just a person who came in and out. Most people didn’t know him at all … There’s no way anyone would know” he sought to carry out violent jihad against fellow Americans.
But that doesn’t square with accounts from co-workers and classmates who describe Mateen as an opinionated loudmouth with violently anti-American and homophobic views. And Mateen was hardly on the fringes of the mosque community. As
CounterJihad.com first reported,
mosque records show his father helped lead the Islamic center as a top officer and board member