While investigators try to figure out the motive of an Iraq war veteran accused of killing five travellers and wounding six others at a busy international airport in Florida, the suspected gunman was charged and could face the death penalty if convicted.
Esteban Santiago (26) was charged with an act of violence at an international airport resulting in death – which carries a maximum punishment of execution – and weapons charges.
Santiago told investigators that he planned the attack, buying a one-way ticket to the Fort Lauderdale airport, a federal complaint said. Authorities don’t know why he chose his target and have not ruled out terrorism.
„Today’s charges represent the gravity of the situation and reflect the commitment of federal, state and local law enforcement personnel to continually protect the community and prosecute those who target our residents and visitors,“ US Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said.
Authorities said during a news conference that they had interviewed roughly 175 people, including a lengthy interrogation with a co-operative Santiago, who is a former National Guard soldier from Alaska.
Flights had resumed at the Fort Lauderdale airport after the bloodshed, though the terminal where the shooting happened remained closed.
FBI Agent George Piro said Santiago spoke to investigators for several hours after he opened fire with a 9mm semi-automatic handgun that he appears to have legally checked on a flight from Alaska.
„Indications are he came here to carry out this horrific attack,“ Piro said. „We have not identified any triggers that would have caused this attack. We’re pursuing all angles on what prompted him to carry out this horrific attack. “
Investigators are combing through social media and other information to determine Santiago’s motive, and it’s too early to say whether terrorism played a role, Piro said.
In November, Santiago had walked into an FBI field office in Alaska saying the US government was controlling his mind and forcing him to watch Isil videos, authorities said.
„He was a walk-in complaint. This is something that happens at FBI offices around the country every day,“ FBI agent Marlin Ritzman said.
Santiago had a loaded magazine on him, but had left a gun in his vehicle, along with his newborn child, authorities said. Officers seized the weapon and local officers took him to get a mental health evaluation. His girlfriend picked up the child.
On December 8, the gun was returned to Santiago. Authorities wouldn’t say if it was the same gun used in the airport attack.
US Attorney Karen Loeffler said Santiago would have been able to legally possess a gun because he had not been judged mentally ill, which is a higher standard than having an evaluation.
Santiago had not been placed on the US no-fly list and appears to have acted alone, authorities said.
The attack sent panicked witnesses running out of the terminal and spilling onto the tarmac, baggage in hand. Others hid in bathroom stalls or crouched behind cars or anything else they could find.

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WARNING: The video below shows the moments the gunman in Fort Lauderdale opened fire. Viewer discretion is advised.
By Steve Almasy and Eliott C. McLaughlin
(CNN) — The gunman walks through the baggage claim area at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport, just steps behind a man and two boys. As coolly as one might check a cell phone for messages, he pulls a handgun from his waistband and begins firing, then quickly runs off camera.
Security footage obtained by TMZ shows the seconds before and after a gunman police say was Esteban Santiago opened fire at the airport Friday. As the silent video begins, it shows what could be any baggage claim area in America.
People tugging suitcases behind them pass baggage carts and carousels. The gunman, wearing a blue sweater with black stripes on the shoulders and carrying a jacket in his left hand, enters the screen, draws the weapon with his right hand and appears to fire it three times.
A couple sitting nearby drops to the ground. A woman ducks behind a baggage cart. Several people, seeing nowhere to take cover, dive face-first to the ground.
Reached for comment on the footage, airport spokesman Greg Meyer said, “We are aware of the video on TMZ. There is currently an investigation involving law enforcement looking into the matter.” The Broward County Sheriff’s Office could not be immediately reached for comment.
Santiago confessed to planning the assault that killed five people and left several others wounded, according to a criminal complaint filed by federal prosecutors.
Two of the injured victims remained in intensive care Sunday afternoon, while the remaining four had been released or were recovering at Broward General Hospital, Sheriff Scott Israel said. The hospital gave slightly different numbers, saying seven victims, five of them suffering gunshot wounds, remained hospitalized Sunday. One gunshot victim was released Saturday, the hospital said.
Asked if passengers would experience added security at the airport, Israel said he was more concerned with persuading lawmakers to keep firearms out of the hands of felons, the mentally ill and those on no-fly lists.
“The answer isn’t to beef up airports,” he said. “We’re a free society. We as Americans, we go to airports and stadiums and venues every day of our lives.”
Gun had been confiscated
Federal authorities were familiar with Santiago. He’d set off red flags just weeks ago.
He visited an Alaska FBI office in November, saying his mind was being controlled by US intelligence. He left a gun in the car.
(Previously, authorities said Santiago also left a newborn in the car, but Anchorage FBI spokeswoman Staci Feger-Pellessier walked that back Sunday, saying Santiago had his child with him when he walked into the FBI office, and “the child was in constant custody and care of the FBI, inside our facility, until his mother retrieved him.”)
The Army veteran’s rambling walk-in interview at the Anchorage office was concerning enough for authorities to take away his gun and order a mental health evaluation. But it wasn’t enough to get him mentally adjudicated, which would have prohibited Santiago from owning a firearm.
Santiago got the gun back a month later when he retrieved the pistol from police headquarters, and it was that weapon, law enforcement sources told CNN, that he used in the airport attack.
“As far as I know, this is not somebody that would have been prohibited based on the information that (authorities in Alaska) have. I think that law enforcement acted within the laws that they have,” said US Attorney Karen Loeffler.
Santiago also had some legal trouble and was due in court in March.
Complaint: He aimed for heads
Santiago, 26, faces three federal charges that each carry the possibility of the death penalty, the US Justice Department said.
He will be charged Monday with counts of causing serious bodily injury to someone at an international airport; using a firearm during and in relation to a violent crime; and causing the death of a person through the use of a firearm.
Santiago told investigators he bought a one-way ticket to Fort Lauderdale and brought a Walther 9 millimeter pistol and two magazines.
He said he went into a bathroom stall at the airport, loaded the gun and shot the first people he saw, according to the criminal complaint. He thinks he fired 15 bullets, aiming at his victims’ heads, the complaint says.
Santiago recently began selling his possessions, including his car. Friends and associates noticed more erratic behavior, investigators have learned from interviews with those who know him.
Authorities are examining writings, including online posts, that appear to indicate some period of planning, law enforcement officials said.
George Piro, the FBI’s special agent in charge in Miami, said Santiago flew from Anchorage to Minneapolis to Fort Lauderdale. A lieutenant with the Anchorage airport police said Santiago had one checked bag — a handgun case containing a pistol.
Though authorities do not yet know Santiago’s motive, the FBI has not ruled out terrorism, Piro said, adding that the suspect was cooperating with investigators, who spent several hours interviewing him.
Broward County Mayor Barbara Sharief said law enforcement has told her that Santiago “had some contact here in terms of family members” and had visited Fort Lauderdale and Miami in the past. However, she said, police have told her that Friday’s shooting was a random attack.
‘His mind was not right’
Santiago lived in Alaska, where he was a security guard.
In January 2016, he was arrested and charged with assault and criminal mischief after an argument with his girlfriend in Anchorage, according to court documents.
Santiago yelled at his girlfriend while she was in the bathroom, then broke down the door, according to the complaint. The woman told investigators that Santiago tried to strangle her and struck her in the side of the head, the complaint said. Santiago left before police arrived.
Anchorage municipal prosecutor Seneca Theno said Santiago pleaded no contest. Under a deferred prosecution agreement, the charges would have been dismissed if he complied with the conditions. He was due back in court March 28.
The military said Santiago’s nine years of service in the National Guard included one 10-month tour in Iraq, where he was awarded a combat action badge.
‘He had visions’
Santiago returned from Iraq a changed man, his aunt told CNN.
“His mind was not right,” Maria Ruiz Rivera said. “He seemed normal at times, but other times he seemed lost. He changed.”
She added, “He talked about all the destruction and the killing of children. He had visions all the time.”
Ruiz said she lost contact with her nephew several months ago.
“He stopped calling,” she said. “He wouldn’t respond to my messages. I would call and text. He seemed distant.”
Her family is still in shock, she said.
“Who would have imagined that he could do something like this?” she said. “I don’t say that because we’re family. I say it because he wasn’t like that.”
The suspect’s brother, Bryan Santiago, said he believes the shooting rampage resulted from mental issues that surfaced after his time in Iraq.
Esteban Santiago requested medical help from army and federal agencies, according to his brother. He received some treatment. Bryan Santiago said he used to speak with his brother regularly, but the communication ceased about a month ago.
The victims
Terry Andres of Virginia Beach, Virginia, was at the airport to begin a vacation with his wife, Ann, and his 63rd birthday was coming up, according to a close friend.
Andres died, and his wife was uninjured, said the friend, who asked to remain anonymous.
“Terry was the kindest, sweetest and best kind of friend anyone could have. He was the ultimate family man,” said the friend, who has known Andres since high school. “He and Ann were married for 40 years, and he absolutely adored his children and grandchildren.”
Another victim was Olga Woltering, 84, who was traveling with her husband, Ralph. They had traveled from their home outside Atlanta for a cruise.
The great-grandmother and loyal church member died, and her husband escaped serious injury, according to posts on social media.
“Olga was one of the most joyful, loving, caring and committed people I have ever met,” the Rev. Fernando Molina-Restrepo of the Catholic Church of the Transfiguration in Marietta, Georgia, told CNN. The Wolterings had been members of the church since 1978, the priest said.
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa identified another slain victim as Michael Oehme of Council Bluffs. In a Twitter post, Grassley also said Oehme’s wife, Kari, was wounded in the shooting.
“Pray as I will for Oehme family of CouncilBluffs Iowa /Father Michael was killed and Kari the mother was wounded at FtLauderdale Massacre,” the tweet says.
A fourth victim was identified as 70-year-old Shirley Timmons, according to her grandson Steve Reineccius, who called her “an amazing daughter, wife, mother and grandmother.”
Timmons had been married for 51 years to her high school sweetheart, and “together they built a close, loving family with their three daughters, three son-in-laws and eight grandchildren. For Shirley, family meant vacations, football games and holiday traditions,” Reineccius said in a statement.
CNN’s Ray Sanchez, Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz, Kevin Conlon, Sheena Jones, Deborah Feyerick, Elise Labott, Rene Marsh, Jim Sciutto, Keith Allen, Joe Sutton, John Couwels and Pamela Brown contributed to this report.

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Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said „all the signs“ are that a man who killed four soldiers in Jerusalem was a supporter of so-called Islamic State (IS).
But he did not outline evidence to support the claim.
The Palestinian man, who has since been shot dead, drove a lorry into a group of soldiers.
An emergency meeting of the Israeli security cabinet approved detention without trial for IS sympathisers.
Three women and a man, all in their twenties, were killed in the attack and 17 others were wounded, police said.
The attacker, identified as 28-year-old Fadi Qunbar, came from the Palestinian district of Jabel Mukaber in east Jerusalem, near to the attack site.
CCTV footage showed the truck ploughing at high speed into the soldiers, before reversing over the victims.
„He drove backward to crush more people,“ eyewitness Leah Schreiber told reporters. „That was really clear. “
The Israel Defense Forces tweeted that the dead soldiers were Lt Yael Yekutiel, 20; Lt Shir Hajaj, 22; 2nd Lt Erez Orbach, 20 and 2nd Lt Shira Tzur, 20.
Other soldiers shot the driver dead. Nine people were arrested in a raid on his neighbourhood, including five members of his family.
Mr Netanyahu visited the site of the attack on Sunday afternoon and said: „We know that there has been a series of terror attacks.
„There definitely could be a connection between them – from France to Berlin, and now Jerusalem. “
Attackers in Nice and Berlin last year used the same method of driving a lorry through a crowd.
National police chief Roni Alseich said it was possible the driver had been motivated by last month’s lorry attack in Berlin.
He said: „It is difficult to get into the head of every individual to determine what prompted him, but there is no doubt that these things do have an effect. “
The Palestinian militant group Hamas, which has political power in Gaza but is designated a terrorist group by the US and the EU, praised the attacker. Hamas spokesman Abdul-Latif Qanou called it a „heroic“ act and encouraged other Palestinians to „escalate the resistance“.
Before this latest incident, 35 Israelis had been killed in a wave of knife, gun and car-ramming attacks by Palestinians or Israeli Arabs since October 2015.
More than 200 Palestinians – mostly attackers, Israel says – have also been killed in that period.
Israel says Palestinian incitement has fuelled the attacks. The Palestinian leadership has blamed frustration rooted in decades of Israeli occupation.

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TEHRAN, Iran — Former Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a wily political survivor and multimillionaire mogul who remained among the ruling elite despite moderate views, died Sunday, state TV reported. He was 82.
Iranian media reported earlier Sunday that he was taken to a hospital north of Tehran because of a heart condition. State television broke into programming to announce his death, the female newscaster’s voice quivering as she read the news.
She said Rafsanjani, “after a life full of restless efforts in the path of Islam and revolution, had departed for lofty heaven.”
Rafsanjani’s mix of sly wit and reputation for cunning moves — both in politics and business — earned him a host of nicknames such as Akbar Shah, or Great King, during a life that touched every major event in Iranian affairs since before the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
His presence — whether directly or through back channels — was felt in many forms. He was a steady leader in the turbulent years following the overthrow of the U. S.-backed shah, a veteran warrior in the country’s internal political battles and a covert go-between in intrigue such as the Iran-Contra arms deals in the 1980s.
He also was handed an unexpected political resurgence in his later years.
The surprise presidential election in 2013 of Rafsanjani’s political soul mate, Hassan Rouhani, gave the former president an insider role in reform-minded efforts that included Rouhani’s push for direct nuclear talks with Washington. World powers and Iran ultimately struck a deal to limit the country’s nuclear enrichment in exchange for the lifting of some economic sanctions.
While Rafsanjani was blocked from the 2013 ballot by Iran’s election overseers — presumably worried about boosting his already wide-ranging influence — the former leader embraced Rouhani’s success.
“Now I can easily die since people are able to decide their fate by themselves,” he reportedly said last March.
However, Rouhani now faces a crucial presidential election in May which will serve as a referendum on the deal and thawing relations with the West. Rafsanjani was sharply critical of a move by Iran’s constitutional watchdog to block moderates, including Hassan Khomeini, the grandson of the Islamic Republic’s founder, from running for a top clerical body in elections last year.
Rafsanjani was a close aide of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and served as president from 1989 to 1997 during a period of significant changes in Iran. At the time, the country was struggling to rebuild its economy after a devastating 1980-88 war with Iraq, while also cautiously allowing some wider freedoms, as seen in Iran’s highly regarded film and media industry.
He also oversaw key developments in Iran’s nuclear program by negotiating deals with Russia to build an energy-producing reactor in Bushehr, which finally went into service in 2011 after long delays. Behind the scenes, he directed the secret purchase of technology and equipment from Pakistan and elsewhere.
Rafsanjani managed to remain within the ruling theocracy after leaving office, but any dreams of taking on a higher-profile role collapsed with Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s disputed re-election in 2009 and the intense crackdown that followed. Rafsanjani’s harsh criticism of Ahmadinejad branded him as a dissenter in the eyes of many conservatives.
In a sign of his waning powers, Rafsanjani’s stance cost him his position as one of the Friday prayer leaders at Tehran University, a highly influential position that often is the forum for significant policy statements.
But some analysts believe that Rafsanjani was kept within the ruling fold as a potential mediator with America and its allies in the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program. His past stature as a trusted Khomeini ally also offered him political protection. Rafsanjani was a top commander in the war with Iraq and played a key role in convincing Khomeini to accept a cease-fire after years of crippling stalemate.
Nearly 25 years later, Rafsanjani tried to revive his credentials among a new generation of reformers by recounting proposals he made to Khomeini in the late 1980s to consider outreach to the United States, still seen by hard-liners as the “Great Satan.”
His image, however, also had darker undertones. He was named by prosecutors in Argentina among Iranian officials suspected of links to a 1994 bombing of a Jewish center in Buenos Aires that killed 85 people. Some Iranian reformers accused him of involvement in the slaying of liberals and dissidents during his presidency — charges that were never pursued by Iranian authorities.
“The title of Islamic Republic is not just a formality,” he said in 2009 in the chaos after Ahmadinejad’s re-election.
“Rest assured, if one of those two aspects is damaged we will lose our revolution. If it loses its Islamic aspect, we will go astray. If it loses its republican aspect, (the Islamic Republic) will not be realized. Based on the reasons that I have offered, without people and their vote there would be no Islamic system.”
Rafsanjani — a portly man with only sparse and wispy chin hairs in contrast to the full beards worn by most Islamic clerics in Iran — first met Khomeini in the Shiite seminaries of Qom in the 1950s and later became a key figure in the Islamic uprising that toppled the U. S.-backed Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi in 1979.
His smooth-skinned visage gave him another nickname that also fit his ruthless image: The Shark.
He was elected as head of Iran’s parliament in 1980 and served until 1989, when he was elected for the first of two four-year terms as president.
Here, Rafsanjani began to build his multilayered — and sometimes contradictory — political nature: A supporter of free enterprise, a relative pragmatist toward foreign affairs and an unforgiving leader who showed no mercy to any challenges to his authority.
Rafsanjani took a dim view of state control of the economy — even in the turbulent years after the Islamic Revolution — and encouraged private businesses, development of Tehran’s stock market and ways to boost Iranian exports. His priority was to rebuild the country after eight years of bloody war with Iraq that killed an estimated 1 million people.
He built roads and connected villages to electrical, telephone and water networks for the first time, earning the title of Commander of Reconstruction by his supporters.
There were certain self-interests at play, as well.
Rafsanjani was assumed to be the head of a family-run pistachio business, which grew to become one of Iran’s largest exporters and provided the financial foundation for a business empire that would eventually include construction companies, an auto assembly plant, vast real estate holdings and a private airline. In 2003, he was listed among Iran’s “millionaire mullahs” by Forbes magazine.
His economic policies won him praise from Iran’s elite and merchant classes, but brought bitterness from struggling workers seeking greater state handouts. Rafsanjani also faced warnings from the ruling theocracy about pushing too far. None of his reforms dared to undercut the vast power of the Revolutionary Guard — which Rafsanjani briefly commanded, and which controls every key defense and strategic program.
Rafsanjani’s complex legacy also was shaped by the times.
He took over the presidency in a critical time of transition just after the death of Khomeini. He tried to make overtures for better ties with the U. S. after the American-led invasion of Kuwait in 1991 to drive out Iraqi forces, arguing that Iran paid too high a price for its diplomatic freeze with Washington.
But he could not overcome opposition from Iranian hard-liners and failed to win the backing of Khomeini’s successor as supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, for bold foreign policy moves. He also angered the West by strengthening Iran’s ties to armed groups such as Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
“One of the wrong things we did, in the revolutionary atmosphere, was constantly to make enemies,” he said in a 1987 interview. “We pushed those who could have been neutral into hostility.”
Rafsanjani was born in 1934 in the village of Bahraman in southeastern Iran’s pistachio-growing region of Rafsanjan. His father, too, was a pistachio farmer with a growing business that would later be expanded into a colossal enterprise.
Rafsanjani was jailed for several years under the shah. He then helped organize the network of mullahs that became Khomeini’s revolutionary underground. In 1965, he is reputed to have provided the handgun for the assassination of Iran’s prime minister, Hassan Ali Mansoor.
Only months after the revolution, Rafsanjani was shot once in the stomach by gunmen from one of the groups vying for power amid the political turmoil. He was not seriously wounded — and neither was his wife, who jumped in front to shield him from the attack.
“Great men of history do not die,” Khomeini said in announcing that Rafsanjani had survived.
In 1980, Rafsanjani was appointed head of the new parliament, or majlis, and was often regarded as the second most powerful man in the country. Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, the republic’s first president, who was forced into exile in 1981 during a power struggle, described Rafsanjani in Machiavellian terms.
“He’s a man with a marked taste for power,” he said in a 1989 interview with The Associated Press from his exile in France. “He’s a political animal.”
Bani-Sadr said Rafsanjani also used to play the role of court jester to amuse Khomeini.
“He’s a man who makes people laugh,” Bani-Sadr said. “It’s a great art. He makes Khomeini laugh. He uses this to gain his objectives … He’s not brilliant as an organizer and he doesn’t have too many original ideas, but he’s a manipulator and he’s intelligent.”
During the 1980s, he used his links with Lebanese Shiite extremists to help secure the release of Western hostages in Lebanon and was a key middleman — identified as “Raf” in Pentagon documents — in the secret Iran-Contra dealings to funnel U. S. arms to Iran in exchange for money used to fund Nicaraguan rebels.
Although Rafsanjani was seen by Washington as a potential ice breaker in relations, his views were far from solidly pro-Western and displayed conflicted positions.
Shortly after becoming president in 1989, he urged Palestinians to kill Westerners to retaliate for Israel’s attacks in the occupied territories.
“It is not hard to kill Americans or Frenchmen,” he said.
In February 1994, Rafsanjani survived a second assassination attempt. A lone gunman fired at him as he was speaking to mark the 15th anniversary of the revolution. Unhurt and unshaken, Rafsanjani calmed a crowd of thousands and continued his speech.
The Iran-Contra fallout is an often-told tale about the dangers of crossing Rafsanjani.
After word was leaked to a Beirut magazine about Rafsanjani’s involvement, he ordered the arrest of the source, a senior adviser to the ruling clerics named Mehdi Hashemi, for treason and other charges. Hashemi and others were executed in September 1987.
After leaving the presidency, Rafsanjani’s main forum was his spot as one of the Friday prayer leaders. His sermons could run for more than two hours and were delivered without notes. In 1999 — amid the first major pro-reform unrest at Tehran University — he praised the use of force to put down the protests.
A decade later, however, he was dismayed at the brutal crackdown against opposition groups and others claiming Ahmadinejad won re-election in June 2009 through vote rigging sanctioned by the ruling theocracy.
Khamenei decided to throw his backing behind Ahmadinejad, effectively snubbing Rafsanjani and his complaints. Later, Rafsanjani fell short on efforts to mobilize enough moderate clerics in the Assembly of Experts — the only group with the power to dismiss the supreme leader — to force possible concessions from Khamenei on the postelection clampdowns.
Rafsanjani was forced out of the post in 2011, but remained as head of the Expediency Council, an advisory body that mediates disputes between the parliament and the Guardian Council, a watchdog group controlled by hard-line clerics.
In January 2012, a court sentenced Rafsanjani’s daughter, Faezeh Hashemi, to six months in prison on charges of criticizing the ruling system.
In 2013, Iran’s election watchdog rejected his nomination for the presidential campaign, hinting at his age.
In 2015, a court sentenced his younger son, Mahdi, to a 10-year prison term over embezzlement and security charges.
Rafsanjani is survived by his wife, Effat Marashi, and five children.

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(BBC) — Iran’s ex-President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, a dominant figure in the country’s politics since the 1980s, has died at the age of 82.
Mr Rafsanjani, president from 1989 to 1997, suffered a heart attack.
He played a pivotal role in the 1979 revolution but later in life became a counterpoint to hardline conservatives.
Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei hailed a “companion of struggle” despite their differences, saying that the loss was “difficult and overwhelming”.

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