Hate crime suspected in arson attack on mosque attended by Orlando gunman

The mosque that Orlando nightclub gunman Omar Mateen attended was set on fire early Monday in what Muslim leaders say was the latest incident in an escalating campaign of harassment and violence against the house of worship and its members.

Given the timing — Sunday’s 15th anniversary of 9/11 and the start of the Muslim holiday Eid al-Adha — investigators believe the blaze at the Islamic Centre of Fort Pierce may have been a hate crime, sheriff’s spokesman Major David Thompson said.

No one was injured. The fire burned a three-metre-wide hole in the roof at the back of the mosque’s main building and blackened its eaves with soot.

A surveillance video from the mosque showed a man approaching the building around 12.30am with a bottle of liquid and some papers, then leaving when there was a flash and shaking his hand as though he may have burned it, Thompson said.

Mateen was killed by police after opening fire at the Pulse nightclub June 12 in a rampage that left 49 victims dead and 53 wounded. His father is among roughly 100 people who attend the mosque.

Wilfredo Amr Ruiz, Florida’s director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the mosque and its worshippers have been harassed since the massacre.