U.S. authorities arrested and charged Thursday a man who allegedly bought the assault rifles used by Syed Farook and his wife to kill 14 people in the San Bernardino mass shooting earlier this month, justice officials said.
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Marquez is expected to make an initial appearance in court on Thursday afternoon. He did not enter a plea.
Marquez responds. My neighborhood. The complaint also accuses Marquez of planning terrorist attacks with Farook in 2011 and 2012 that were not carried out, the Justice Department said.
Neither attack took place.
A friend of Marquez, who asked not to be identified, had previously told The Daily Beast that Marquez’s attraction to Farook and radical Islam was “more of an intellectual curiosity” than a devotion.
“Marquez: He did the San Bernardino shooting”.
He checked himself into a mental-health facility in the aftermath of the shooting.
Right after the shooting, Marquez called his mother to say he was safe but that he wouldn’t be coming home, neighbour Lorena Aguirre said. Farook allegedly planned to then move among stopped vehicles, shooting into them, while Marquez shot into vehicles from a position on a nearby hillside.
The purchases were unlawful, prosecutors allege, because Marquez signed legal documents saying the guns were for only the personal use of himself and his immediate family. “They can trace all the guns back to me”.
While the conspiracy charge doesn’t specifically accuse Marquez of having any advanced knowledge of the San Bernardino plot, FBI investigators said he and Farook did acquire the firearms with the intent of carrying out some type of violent attack – which they allegedly began discussing in 2011.
Farook, the U.S-born son of Pakistani immigrants, and Pakistani-born Malik were killed in a shootout with police a few hours after their assault on the party on a holiday party of Farook’s co-workers.
The massacre was a terror attack, authorities have said.
The FBI said Farook and Malik were supporters of Islamic State, the violent group that has taken over large parts of Syria and Iraq, and that they had discussed martyrdom online before they even met.
Malik also pledged allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Badghadi in a Facebook post as the San Bernardino attack was happening, three USA officials familiar with the investigation told CNN.
According to an Federal Bureau of Investigation affidavit, the two men met in 2005 when Marquez became Farook’s neighbor in Riverside, California. Marquez and Farook’s brother are married to sisters from Russian Federation.
Marquez, who had been working as a security guard at Wal-Mart, was known for his shy and mild-manned demeanor.
Farook introduced Marquez to Islam shortly after the two met. Marquez converted to Islam in 2007 and, soon after, Farook began to introduce Marquez to “radical Islamic ideology”, according to the affidavit. The sisters are from Russian Federation and came to the United States on J-1 visas – commonly used for educational and cultural programs – according to a federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.
The documents say the men also identified a long stretch of the 91 freeway with no exits, where Farook would throw pipe bombs that would stop rush-hour traffic, allowing him then to walk along the freeway and gun down motorists in their stranded cars.
Tommy Lopez, who said he became friends with Marquez after meeting at a punk rock show seven months ago, said he never talked about his wife and was not religious. He’d soon meet a new friend, living in the house next door, Syed Rizwan Farook.
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Attorney E. Martin Estrada, a former federal prosecutor in Los Angeles, said the admissibility of Marquez’s statements to the FBI will likely be challenged by defense lawyers, but if the statements are allowed in court, they give prosecutors a very strong case because of corroborating evidence.
