(AP) The FBI asked Apple this week to help extract data from iPhones that belonged to the Saudi aviation student who investigators say fatally shot three sailors at a U.S. naval base in Florida last month.
Investigators have been trying to access the two devices — an iPhone 7 and an iPhone 5 that belonged to Mohammed Alshamrani, a 21-year-old 2nd Lt. in the Royal Saudi Air Force — but have been unable to access them because the phones are locked and encrypted, according to the letter from the FBI’s general counsel, Dana Boente.
The FBI has received a court authorization to search the phones and the devices have been sent to the bureau’s lab in Quantico, Virginia, Boente said.
