Mateen Kiled 49 Because 2 Men From Pulse Nightclub Had Infected Him With HIV/AIDS

A man in a disguise claiming to be the lover of Orlando gunman Omar Mateen said the June 12 massacre at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida was motivated by revenge, not radical Islam.

In an interview with Univision, the man said Mateen was "100 percent gay" and that the two had carried on a "friends with benefits" relationship after meeting last year through a gay dating app. He said he had reported his relationship with Mateen to the FBI and had been interviewed several times. The FBI also confirmed to Univision that it has met with him.

Miguel said Mateen's attack followed a sexual encounter with two Latino men, one of whom Mateen later discovered was HIV positive. The attack, carried out at the nightclub's Latino night, was Mateen's attempt at taking revenge against a specific group of gays, whom Mateen felt had used and rejected him, Miguel said.

"He adored Latinos, gay Latinos, with brown skin, but he felt rejected. He felt used by them. There were moments in the Pulse nightclub that made him feel really bad. Guys used him. That really affected him," Miguel told Univision. "I believe this crazy horrible thing he did, that was revenge."

Miguel described Mateen as a "very sweet guy" who "loved to be cuddled" and frequented gay bars. He said he was stunned when he discovered Mateen had been the shooter at Pulse, that it was "impossible that the man I know could do that."

The FBI has said investigators are still looking into Mateen's contacts in the months leading up to the attack.

On June 12, 2016, a gunman killed 49 people and injured 53 others inside Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. He was killed by Orlando police after a three-hour standoff. It was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in the U.S., and the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in the U.S. Pulse was hosting a Latin Night and most of the victims were of Hispanic descent. The massacre was widely denounced both as an act of terrorism and a hate crime.

The assailant was Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old American of Afghan descent. Witnesses said he was a regular patron of the nightclub and had used gay dating websites in the past, although the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is skeptical of such reports. Mateen had expressed hostility towards LGBT people and other minorities in the past. In a 9-1-1 call shortly after the attack began, he swore allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) said it found no links between ISIL and Mateen.