THE widow of the Palestinian who killed a young musician from Denmark and seriously wounded six other tourists before fatally shooting himself at New York City's Empire State Building on Sunday said in Gaza yesterday her husband was not politically motivated but in personal distress.
Mrs Fathiya Abu Kamal (55) said her husband, Ali Abu Kamal, travelled to the US last December seeking a financier for a new investment company. But somebody cheated him out of his life savings of about half a million dollars.
"My husband thought his life ended at that point and there is no way to compensate him," she said. "He was 69 years old, he could not regain his money. If he really fired the shots it is only out of despair and disappointment."
After the shooting on the famous building's observation deck on the 86th floor, Abu Kamal turned the gun on himself. He died of his wounds hours later.
The New York Mayor, Mr Rudolph Giuliani, told a news conference the gunman was carrying documents from the Palestinian Authority that showed he lived in Ramallah on the West Bank and was born in Jaffa. His family said he was born in Jaffa but lived in Gaza, not Ramallah.
He came to New York on Christmas Eve. Kamal had bought the pistol used in the shooting in Florida at the end of January, the mayor said. Police said a receipt for the gun was found on his body.
He said a joint terrorism task force of the FBI and city police would investigate the shootings.
The widow insisted there was no political motive. "My husbands is not a terrorist, he was just hopeless," she said. "He was aged, he had nothing to do with politics, or terrorism, or crime."
Abu Kamal's widow, six children and relatives mourned him at their home in Gaza City's middle class Rimal neighbourhood. Relatives said Abu Kamal had been an English teacher at a college for 50 years.
The widow appealed to the Palestinian President, Mr Yasser Arafat, to have the body sent to Gaza for burial and requested to be informed of "the mysterious circumstances of his death".
The Danish musician was in his 20s. Among the wounded were a Connecticut man who played in the same rock group, a 52 year old Argentinian man, a 30 year old Swiss man, a 35 year old Bronx, New York man, and a married couple from Verdun, France.