Seddique Mateen’s Facebook Page Removed

CENSORED, ORDERED, OR VOLUNTARY?

by Sharon Rondeau

(Jun. 20, 2016) — The Facebook page of Seddique Mateen, father of Orlando nightclub killer Omar Mateen, has been removed.

The elder Mateen had appeared on several radio and video broadcasts of the “Durand Jirga Show” to discuss Afghani politics, some of which were posted on the page, which existed as of last week.

Links which led to Mateen’s Facebook page from an article written by Mashable and other sources are broken.

In 2014, Mateen interviewed the new Afghani president, Ashraf Ghani.  The show is stated to have been hosted out of Ft. Pierce, FL, with a California phone number indicated by the area code 818.

The website which apparently accompanied the show, durandjirga.com, also appears to have been taken down, although a Facebook page, durand.jirga, can be found here.  That site’s last entry was made on June 27, 2014.

In the early hours of June 12, Mateen’s son Omar entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, FL with two firearms and killed 49, wounding 53.  The FBI has since been tracking his movements in the years and weeks leading up to the attack, during which he pledged allegiance to the brutal jihadist group ISIS on a 911 call.

The FBI had twice interviewed Omar but determined that he did not pose a terror threat to the U.S.

Directly following the murders, after which his son was killed by a SWAT team, Mateen indicated that he was “in shock like the whole country.”  YouTube videos of mainstream media interviews with Mateen following the attack are still available.

The Facebook page under the search terms “seddique mateen videos” yields more mainstream media interviews with Mateen.

On the now-defunct Facebook page, Mateen had implied that he had visited the U.S. State Department in a photo depicting him standing outside of a door with the insignia “U.S. Department of State.”

Last week, The Post & Email published an article which explored speculation that Mateen had visited the State Department or the White House in person prior to the attack.  A response received from White House Media Affairs as to whether or not Mateen’s photo of himself apparently standing at a White House podium with the seal of the President of the United States stated that “I received your e-mail and I wanted to reply that this does not appear to be a photo taken at the White House.”

On Monday morning, The Post & Email sent a FOIA request for any documents indicating that Seddique Mateen ever communicated or met with anyone at the State Department or the Afghani Embassy in Washington, DC.