Malik Faisal Akram was banned from a U.K. Magistrate court three weeks after 9/11. He told a court usher he wished he had been on one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center.
More than 20 years after the 9/11 attacks, Akram, 44, was let inside a Colleyville synagogue under the guise that he needed shelter. He cocked a handgun he bought off the street and held Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker and three members of Congregation Beth Israel hostage. He demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, the first female terrorism defendant arrested after 9/11. She is incarcerated at a federal prison in Fort Worth.
“You get my sister on the phone,” he was heard in a livestream of the synagogue’s Sabbat service, referring to Siddiqui. Her family has said they are not blood relatives. It is common for people who support Siddiqui to refer to her as their sister.
Akram was killed at the end of the standoff after the hostages safely escaped. Police have not said if Akram shot himself or if members of the FBI’s Hostage Rescue Team killed him. He had accepted his death hours before it happened, based on what he could be heard saying on the livestream.
“I’m going to die at the end of this, all right? I am going to die, so don’t cry over me,” he said.
The FBI is investigating the standoff as an act of terrorism.
In the days following, U.S. officials have released little information about Akram and how he got to North Texas. What we do know raises many questions.
Comments about 9/11
On Sept. 12, 2001, as first responders covered in gray ash continued their rescue efforts in New York, Akram was once again causing a stir inside the Blackburn magistrates court in Northgate, roughly 30 miles north of Manchester, England.
He wasn’t scheduled for court but had been known to cause trouble there, according to a 2001 report from the Lancashire Telegraph.
His 9/11 ramblings caused the courts to ban him from returning. This followed a warning letter sent to him in May of that year related to a previous, unknown incident.
The Fort Worth Star-Telegram contacted the court and local police for more information on Monday, but a response wasn’t immediately received.
Akram told the Lancashire Telegraph in 2001 that he was innocent of the allegation that he had talked about 9/11 in court.
However, a letter from the deputy justice clerk to Akram that was obtained by the Lancashire Telegraph said, “In a clear reference to the the terrorist attack on New York the previous day you said on more than one occasion to one of my court ushers ‘you should have been on the ——– plane.”
The clerk described Akram as a “menace.”
The FBI, which identified Akram as the hostage taker on Sunday morning, has not said if it knew about Akram before Saturday. He was not on a watch list, according to CNN.
Akram’s time in the U.S.
Akram flew direct from England to JFK Airport in New York on Dec. 29 and listed a hotel as his destination, a source told the New York Post.
His brother, Gulbar, publicly questioned why Akram was allowed to travel to the U.S. and wrote in a now-private Facebook group that he “was suffering from mental health issues.”
“He’s known to police. Got a criminal record,” Gulbar told Sky News UK. “How was he allowed to get a visa and acquire a gun?”
While in the synagogue, Akram said he was “not a sociopath.”
“I have feelings, I have emotions. I’m human, I’m me,” he said.
President Joe Biden said he believed Akram “got the weapons on the street” when he landed in the U.S.
Akram is said to have spent his “first night” at a homeless shelter, but the president didn’t clarify a location.
“But — and, allegedly, he purchased it on the street,” Biden said, referring to the handgun. “Now what that means, I don’t know. Whether he purchased it from an individual in a homeless shelter or a homeless community, or whether — because that’s where he said he was — it’s hard to tell. I just don’t know.”
Akram spent Jan. 6, 11 and 13 at Union Gospel Mission Dallas, CEO Bruce Miller told CNN.
“We were a way station for him. He had a plan. He was very quiet. He was in and out,” Butler told CNN.
“I’ve lived on no sleep for 14 days,” Akram said at the synagogue.
Akram’s life in the U.K.
Akram had no ties to Pakistan and had been radicalized in Blackburn, where he was from, his family told The News International in Pakistan.
Raffaelo Pantucci, a researcher at Royal United Services Institute, a defense and security think tank, told The Washington Post that Blackburn is known for “producing some terrorists in the past.”
A 14-year-old from Blackburn was convicted in 2015 after inciting terrorism in Australia. The Post reported the teen instructed a jihadist to behead or kill officers at a parade. He was freed last year after a parole board determined he could be released early.
“Blackburn is quite a conservative community, quite fundamentalist,” Pantucci told the Post. “The mosques there do not like violence nor the attention it attracts.”
The International News reported that Akram’s father and other relatives participated in local politics. His father migrated to Britain about 50 years ago and is respected in his community, the newspaper wrote.
A source told the newspaper that Akram was involved in demonstrations for the freedom of Palestine. He also protested for the release of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, according to the report.
His brother, Gulbar, said in a private Facebook group that he had been working with the FBI throughout the standoff and that his brother had mental health issues, but he has not elaborated.
“There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender,” he wrote. “…We would also like to add that any attack on any human being be it a Jew, Christian or Muslim etc is wrong and should always be condemned. It is absolutely inexcusable for a Muslim to attack a Jew or for any Jew to attack a Muslim, Christian, Hindu vice versa etc.”
Akram had five children, four boys and a girl, according to international media.
On Sunday, police in northwestern England took two teenagers, reportedly his sons, into custody for questioning related to the hostage situation.
Akram was in touch with the boys during the standoff, a senior law enforcement official told NBC News. However, a spokesperson from the FBI office in Dallas said there was no indication others were involved.
Motive
During the standoff, Akram referenced Aafia Siddiqui, who was the first female terrorism defendant arrested after 9/11.
Siddiqui is being held in FMC Carswell prison in Fort Worth — 24 miles southwest of the synagogue. She is serving an 86-year sentence for the attempted murder of U.S. soldiers.
People who listened to the livestream and spoke with the Washington Post reported Akram said he chose the synagogue because it was the closest gathering place for Jewish people to the prison.
He called for Siddiqui to be released and repeatedly demanded he speak with her on the phone.
“Once I have my sister here let me tell you, I will not take these four guys out,” he said. “I swear by Allah.”
He could be heard arguing with a negotiator on the phone.
“I’m giving you a deal on the plate. Why do we need to use force?” he asked at one point. “There’s something (expletive) wrong with the system, that you are still trying to do a deal with me on a human life over a phone call. Now there is something wrong with America.”
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