A British businessman who took four people hostage at a synagogue in Texas forced them to their knees and threatened to shoot them unless the FBI released an al-Qaeda prisoner, an inquest heard.
Malik Faisal Akram, 44, who was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, fired a warning shot and screamed he would ‘put a bullet’ in the heads of the ‘Israeli mother******s’ in a final phone call. The extremist, who had previously been investigated by MI5, was shot dead after agents stormed the synagogue minutes later.
The inquest heard Akram, who ran a chain of pharmacies, wanted a female Pakistani scientist called Aafia Siddiqui, who was linked to al-Qaeda, freed from jail. She was being held at Forth Worth around 20 miles away.
Akram, a father-of-six, had travelled to New York, where he purchased a handgun on the black market, in December 2021 before flying onto Texas. At around 10am, on January 15, 2022, he talked his way into the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, 30 miles from Dallas, where a service was underway, by claiming he was homeless and held a rabbi and three Jewish worshippers hostage.
Malik Faisal Akram (pictured) ran a chain of pharmacies and was originally from Blackburn, Lancashire
Akram was arrested in Blackburn in 2018 (pictured) after refusing to pay his landlord any rent. Police vans are pictured at the scene
SWAT team members deploy near the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville, Texas
Other members of the congregation, who were watching via a live-stream because of the Covid-19 epidemic, alerted police.
The hearing, at Preston Coroner’s Court, was played a recording of Akram’s demands during the 11-hour siege.
At 2.42pm, four and a half hours into the stand-off, Akram was on the phone to his sons when he fired the handgun in the air, telling FBI negotiators: ‘It was just, you know, my kids I was just saying my last goodbyes to them. I said, shall I fire one? and I just fired one.’
By around 8pm, Akram had become more volatile and aggressive.
He shouted at negotiators: ‘You f*****g scumbag bastards, you can’t f***ing release one person, one woman, cause your f*****g ego is bigger than a big girl’s f*****g bra.’
Akram could also be heard telling the hostages: ‘OK, get on your f*****g knees you motherf******s,’ adding: ‘F*** it, I’m going to take everyone now…I mean f*****g business now.’
On January 15, 2022, Akram talked his way into the Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville
Police at the scene following the incident at Congregation Beth Israel Synagogue in Colleyville
He called the captives ‘Israeli motherf*****s,’ adding: ‘I’m going to f*****g cause bloodshed.’
After demanding the FBI bring his ‘sister’ Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year prison sentence for trying to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan, to the synagogue, Akram said: ‘Are you fucking listening now I’ve got a f*****g trigger on all f*****g three of their heads right? And I’ll f*****g pull it too.’
At 9.10pm, the rabbi decided to throw a chair to distract Akram and he and two hostages were able to escape.
CCTV footage showed Akram go to the door and point his gun at the last hostage, who had fallen into bushes a few feet from the back door of the synagogue, but he did not fire and instead went back inside, closing the door behind him.
One minute later specialist law enforcement officers entered and shot Akram dead.
A general view of Blackburn in northern England where Texas synagogue hostage-taker Malik Faisal Akram was born
Richard Fries, the deputy medical examiner in Texas, gave Akram’s cause of death as multiple gunshot wounds. He was hit by five bullets, one of which struck him in the chest, the court heard.
Coroner James Adeley recorded that Akram had ‘detained hostages and died after being shot by federal agents.’
The court heard married Akram ran a string of pharmacies in the North West of England but his business failed around the same time as his marriage. At the time of his death he had been estranged from his wife for three years.
Associates in Blackburn said Akram had become increasingly religious and had quarrelled with his wider family in the months before his death. He had spent much of the year before the attack in Pakistan.
It was revealed at the time of the attack that Akram had previously been the subject of a low-level investigation by MI5 in 2020 but the case was closed after a month.
