In Stunning Verdict, Jury Acquit's Pulse Gunman's Widow Noor Salman of Any Role in Massacre

A Florida jury found wife of the Pulse Nightclub shooter not guilty of obstruction of justice and helping her husband carrying out the massacre, according to multiple media reports.

Noor Salman, 31, would have faced up to live in prison the Orlando Sentinel reported.

It took the jury 12 hours of deliberations before handing up the verdict.

"I respect the criminal justice process, and we all to trust that the jury made their decision free of bias and emotion," said Pulse owner Barbara Poma in a statement posted on Twitter. "Those of us directly affected by this tragedy must find peace in our hearts and remember that he was the one who pulled the trigger that night," she added.

Prosecutors had said Salamn helped her husband Omar Mateen to prepare for the attack and later lied to the FBI to hinder the investigation.

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 one of 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.