Living their faith, worshippers at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, invited an unknown, unkempt (by his own admission he "didn't look nice") man into their synagogue after he asked if it was a night shelter. They gave him comfort — and a cup of tea.
But Malik Faisal Akram, a 44-year-old from Great Britain, did not return the kindness. In a nearly 11-hour hostage crisis that was captured in part on a Facebook livestream, Akram held three congregants and the synagogue's rabbi, Charlie Cytron-Walker, in a harrowing ordeal that ended with the hostages alive and Akram dead.
While more facts need to be established, it appears that among Akram's demands was the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist serving an 86-year sentence in a nearby federal medical center in Fort Worth for trying to kill American military officers while in custody in Afghanistan.
