Police block a street near the home of Tennessee shooter
Police block a street near the home of Tennessee shooterReuters

The uncle of the man who shot four U.S. Marines and a sailor in Tennessee was released nearly a week after he was detained by Jordan’s intelligence services, his lawyer said Thursday, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The lawyer, Abdelkader Ahmed Al Khatib, said no charges were filed against Asaad Ibrahim Haj Ali after he was interrogated by the Jordanian intelligence authorities and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).

“His family informed me that he was released today and there were no charges pressed against him. But I did not talk to him because he was tired after he was held for a week in custody,” Khatib said, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The lawyer called Ali’s detention “illegal,” saying he should have been interrogated without being detained.

A government official later confirmed that the uncle was released, but didn’t provide further comment.

Ali reportedly ran a small telecommunications company that employed Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez, the 24-year-old who was killed by police last Thursday following a shooting spree at two military facilities in Chattanooga.

Reports of the uncle’s arrest came a few days after the FBI said it would investigate Abdulazeez’s visit to Jordan in 2014, and whether he left Jordan to visit other countries before coming home.

Investigators had earlier indicated they don't have "anything that directly ties" Abdulazeez to any foreign terrorist organizations, but experts have said his behavior fits the mold of attacks Islamic State (ISIS) has called for.

On Monday, two American officials said that Abdulazeez was in Qatar at least once during his 2014 trip to the Middle East, but the reasons for the stopover were still unknown.

A close friend of Abdulazeez said on the weekend that Abdulazeez texted him a link to an Islamic verse hours before the attack, including the line: "Whosoever shows enmity to a friend of Mine, then I have declared war against him."

The shooter was also allegedly upset about the 2014 war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and the civil war in Syria.