The Briton who took four hostages at a synagogue in Texas on Saturday was killed by police while talking on the phone with his children, the brother of the attacker told Sky News.
Malik Faisal Akram, 44, broke into a synagogue in the city of Colleyville during a ceremony that was being broadcast live on the internet. He, who claimed to be carrying bombs, held four hostages, including a rabbi, for about ten hours, until he was killed after the police invaded the religious center.
The case was classified as terrorism by US President Joe Biden.
Gulbar Akram, the kidnapper’s brother, said he also spoke to him by phone during the bombing and that Malik said he would free the Jews if neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui was brought to the scene. “I want them to bring her here, and I will free these guys”, the Brit reportedly told his brother.
Siddiqui, whom Malik was referring to, is a Pakistani woman convicted of terrorism after shooting American soldiers while imprisoned in Afghanistan in 2010, at which time she was accused of being a collaborator with the terrorist group Al Qaeda. She is serving 86 years in a federal prison in Texas.
“I was in shock, my head was going to explode. By then I knew my brother didn’t stand a chance,” Gulbar told Sky News. “He was saying to me, ‘I came to die.’ I tried to convince him, I told him to think about his children, his mother, his father. But his mind was made up. He wanted to let her go. [Siddiqui].”
Gulbar defended his brother in the interview, saying he knew at all times that he would not harm the hostages and that he was lying about having a bomb. The Briton also said that Malik had mental problems and that he could not have boarded a plane to the United States without a background check, nor should he have been allowed to pass through immigration in the country.
This Tuesday (18), Frank Gardner, a security expert for the British network BBC, said that Malik was already known to the UK intelligence service. “He was investigated in 2020 and assessed as not posing a risk at the time he flew to the US on New Year’s,” he wrote.
White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki said on Tuesday that US government databases did not indicate any warnings that Malik was a risk.
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