The man who took four people hostage on Saturday in a synagogue in Texas was known to the British secret service MI5 and had a criminal record, reports the BBC. At the end of 2020, Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old British man, was already being vetted by the security services. It was then concluded that he posed no threat. MI5 usually has about 3000 subjects of interest in its sights.
Akram was shot dead during a rescue operation after being held hostage for more than ten hours. The hostages were unharmed. Rabbi Charlie Cytron-White of the synagogue threw a chair at Akram during the police action, after which he and two others managed to escape. The fourth hostage had already been released earlier.
More and more is known about Akram’s background and the run-up to the hostage situation. According to the rabbi of the synagogue in Colleyville, near Dallas, Akram pretended to be a homeless man who needed help. In this way he had entered the synagogue about 11 a.m., where a meeting was then going on. He spent the weeks leading up to the hostage crisis in shelters for the homeless.
He arrived at JFK airport in New York about two weeks before the hostage-taking. There he is said to have bought the weapons he used during the hostage crisis “on the street”.
Mental health
In a Facebook post that has since been removed, his brother says that Akram had psychological problems. That’s also something Akram’s friends and acquaintances from Blackburn, where he came from, are saying, according to the BBC.
During his hostage run, Akram demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani scientist who was sentenced to 86 years in prison for attempting to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan. She’s stuck in Fort Worth, not far from Colleyville. She has distanced herself from Akram’s action in a statement.
Yesterday, two teenagers were arrested in England in connection with the hostage situation. It is not yet clear what their possible role was.
Anti-Semitism
US President Biden called the hostage-taking “an act of terror”. He also said the US “will stand up to anti-Semitism and the rise of extremism in this country”. British Foreign Secretary Liz Truss called it an “act of terror and anti-Semitism”.
The FBI initially said Akram was “not specifically targeting matters related to the Jewish community”. This came under criticism from the federal police, because it suggested that anti-Semitism was not a motive. In a new statement, the FBI spoke of a “terror-related matter targeting the Jewish community.”
In recent years, several terrorist attacks have been carried out on synagogues in the US. In 2018, 11 people were killed and seven injured in an attack on a synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. A year later, someone was killed in an attack in Poway, California. Three people were also injured.
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