The man who first reported Orlando shooter Omar Mateen to the FBI has a message for Donald Trump: Muslims do play a role in flagging terrorist threats to authorities.
“I had told the FBI about Omar because my community, and Muslims generally, have nothing to hide,” Florida entrepreneur Mohammad Malik wrote in a Washington Post op-ed published Monday. “I love this country, like most Muslims that I know. I don’t agree with every government policy (I think there’s too much money in politics, for instance), but I’m proud to be an American. I vote. I volunteer. I teach my children to treat all people kindly.”
In the days since Mateen, a Muslim American from New York, killed 49 people at a Florida gay club, Trump has charged that Muslims in the U.S. know which individuals in their communities are likely to carry out similar attacks.
“Muslims know who they are, largely,” Trump said. “They know who they are. They have to turn them in. They know who they are. They see them.”
The presumptive Republican presidential nominee also suggested that assimilation is close to “nonexistent” even among second and third generation Muslims living in the U.S.
According to Malik, who immigrated from Pakistan in 1979 at the age of 6, these claims are “a lie.”
Pointing out that the 3.3 million Muslims in the U.S. can’t be held responsible for the private thoughts of every individual who shares their faith, Malik said he never saw any indication during a decade of casual acquaintanceship with Mateen that suggested he “had a dark side.”
Malik twice provided federal officials with information about terrorist threats. After a man from their local Florida mosque, who was self-radicalized by watching the lectures of Yemeni imam Anwar al-Awlaki, carried out a suicide bombing in Syria, Malik provided the FBI with background information about him. After Mateen told him that he, too, had been watching Awlaki’s videos, Malik told the FBI to keep tabs on him.
A federal law enforcement official confirmed Malik’s cooperation with the agency to The Washington Post.
Malik wrote in the op-ed that Mateen and other alienated Muslim Americans were further isolated by the “suspicion of Islam” in the U.S.
“I am not the first American Muslim to report on someone; people who do that simply don’t like to announce themselves in to the media,” Malik said. “For my part, I’m not looking for personal accolades. I’m just tired of negative rhetoric and ignorant comments about my faith. Trump’s assertions about our community—that we have the ability to help our country but have simply declined to do so—are tragic, ugly and wrong.”
