The Briton killed by the police during a hostage-taking in a synagogue in Texas told his brother that he had been praying for “two years” to die as a martyr, according to a conversation reproduced Thursday by The Jewish Chronicle.
(Read here: Briton who kidnapped 4 people in synagogue was investigated by MI5)
Anti-terrorist police in the North West of England announced on the same day that they had arrested two men in Birmingham, in the center of England, and Manchester, in the north, in the framework of this investigation, which drew criticism for the inability of the British counter-terrorism services to prevent Malik Faisal Akram from taking action.
(Also: ‘I am grateful to be alive’: the message of a rabbi who was held captive in Texas)
This 44-year-old Briton was designated as the author of the hostage-taking last Saturday in a synagogue in Colleyville, an American town of about 23,000 inhabitants located about 40 kilometers from Dallas. He was killed in the police assault and the four hostages were released unharmed.
An audio recording posted online by The Jewish Chronicle, obtained from a security source, reveals the tense conversation between Malik Faisal Akram and his brother Gulbar, who were trying to convince him to end the hostage-taking and turn himself in. But the attacker tells him that he wanted to die as a martyr.
“I’ve been praying to Allah for this for two years,” he says. “I’d rather live one day as a lion than a hundred years as a jackal,” he adds.
(You may be interested in: The criminal gangs of Colombians that plague several US cities.)
In the conversation, Malik Faisal Akram also refers to “Dr. Aafia,” a Pakistani scientist sentenced in 2010 by a federal court in New York to 86 years in prison for attempting to shoot US servicemen while detained in Afghanistan.
According to US media, the British demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui during the attack. For its part, the British newspaper The Times reported on Thursday that Akram had been singled out twice, in 2016 and 2019, to the British Prevent program, which works with people at risk of radicalization, but his case was not examined by the section which deals with the most serious cases.
In 2020, Akram was investigated by the British intelligence service MI5, which concluded that he did not pose a threat, according to the press.
His brother said on Monday that Malik “suffered from psychological problems.” He assured that his family was “devastated” and that “they did not approve of any of his actions”.
According to the Sky News channel, Akram, a resident of Blackburn, in the north of England, arrived in the United States just before New Year’s Eve through New York’s JFK airport, before buying the weapon used in the hostage-taking.
AFP
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