A rabbi who was among four people held hostage at a Texas synagogue said Sunday that the British man who held them captive became “increasingly belligerent and threatening” toward the end of the 10-hour standoff.
Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker of Congregation Beth Israel, near Fort Worth, credited security training that his congregation has received over the years for helping him and the other hostages get through the situation. He said in a statement that without that instruction, “we would not have been prepared to act and flee when the situation presented itself.”
Authorities on Sunday identified the hostage-taker as a 44-year-old British national, Malik Faisal Akram. He was killed after the last three hostages ran from the building and an FBI SWAT team stormed it at about 9 p.m. on Saturday. Authorities haven’t said whether Akram was killed by a member of the team.
The FBI said there was no indication that anyone else was involved, but it didn’t provide a possible motive.
Britain’s foreign office on Sunday confirmed the death of a British man in Texas, in a statement issued in response to a media inquiry about the gunman at the synagogue.
We thank the brave men and women in federal, state, and local law enforcement, and we stand in solidarity with the Congregation Beth Israel community and the entire Jewish community. My statement: <a href=”https://t.co/K262cqQLpb”>pic.twitter.com/K262cqQLpb</a>
—@VP
SWAT teams from the Colleyville Police Department responded to the synagogue after emergency calls began at about 10:41 a.m. local time during the Sabbath service on Saturday, which was being broadcast online. FBI negotiators soon opened contact with the man, who said he wanted to speak to a woman held in a federal prison.
The man was heard having a one-sided phone conversation during a Facebook live stream of the service. The man could be heard ranting and talking about religion and his sister, repeatedly saying he did not want to see anyone hurt, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.
The hostage-taker claimed to be the brother of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who is serving an 86-year U.S. prison sentence on her 2010 conviction for shooting at soldiers and FBI agents, and demanded that she be freed, a U.S. official told ABC News.
Siddiqui is being held at a federal prison in the Fort Worth area. A lawyer representing Siddiqui, Marwa Elbially, told CNN in a statement that the man was not Siddiqui’s brother and that Siddiqui’s family condemned his “heinous” actions.
U.S. President Joe Biden on Sunday called the hostage-taking “an act of terror.”
For all the latest World News Click Here
For the latest news and updates, follow us on Google News.