DALLAS — The brother of the hostage-taker who held four people captive at a Colleyville synagogue over the weekend said the British national had “serious mental health issues” prior to traveling to the U.S. and allegedly getting a gun on the streets.
Malik Faisal Akram, 44, of Blackburn, England, is dead after the 11-hour standoff with law enforcement at the Congregation Beth Israel. All four hostages, including Rabbi Charlie Cytron-Walker, escaped unharmed Saturday after the daylong standoff.
His brother, Gulbar Akram, described the 44-year-old as a “deeply troubled man” in an interview with The New York Times.
“He had mental health issues,” his brother said in the interview. “It’s well known, everybody in the town knows, he has mental health issues.”
Malik Faisal Akram previously has been described by the FBI as the sole suspect, but British authorities say they detained two teenagers in connection with the gunman. Greater Manchester police tweeted about the arrests but released few details about why counterterrorism officers detained the teens.
The two teens were Akram’s sons, who were in touch with him at some point during the standoff Saturday, MSNBC reported. British law gives police wide latitude to make arrests during a terrorism investigation, and diplomats counseled against drawing any conclusions about the two teens.
Malik Faisal Akram was killed late Saturday after the hostages escaped unharmed and authorities swarmed the synagogue. Authorities have not revealed how he died.
Gulbar Akram told The Times he last saw his brother three months ago at their brother’s funeral. Since then, he said Malik Faisal Akram’s mental health declined. He did not elaborate further.
The brother also said Malik Faisal Akram did not have connections to North Texas and questioned how his brother was able to travel into the U.S. He noted that Malik Faisal Akram had been known to counterterrorism police in Britain, but did not provide details, The Times reported.
President Joe Biden said Sunday that Malik Faisal Akram may have been in the U.S. for only a few weeks after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport on Dec. 29 and purchased a gun “on the street.”
He spent some of that time at a Dallas homeless shelter.
Akram spent three nights at Union Gospel Mission Dallas’ homeless shelter between Jan. 6 and 13, the nonprofit’s CEO Bruce Butler told CNN.
“We were a way station for him,” Butler said. “He had a plan. He was very quiet. He was in and out.”
Akram’s last day at the shelter was Thursday, Butler said.
“He was not there long enough to build any relationships,” Butler said. “We had a lot of new faces coming in because of the cold weather.”
Local and federal law enforcement officers instructed the nonprofit against publicly discussing information about Akram, shelter officials said Monday in a message to The Dallas Morning News.
They reiterated that Akram came and went through the shelter and didn’t share any plans of an attack.
”Had we had reason to believe he was going to engage in a criminal act, we would have contacted authorities immediately,” officials wrote.
Member of British Parliament Kate Hollern, who represents Blackburn, condemned the hostage-taker’s actions in a statement posted to Twitter on Monday. Blackburn is an industrial city in Lancashire, England, about 20 miles outside of Manchester.
“The actions of this individual are not a reflection of Blackburn or any religious community,” the statement said.
In his interview with The Times, Gulbar Akram said he did not believe his brother held antisemitic or racist beliefs.
In both a message on the Blackburn Muslim Community’s Facebook page and his interview with The Times, Gulbar Akram described being on the phone with his brother during negotiations.
“There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender,” Gulbar Akram wrote in the since-deleted Facebook post.
Speaking for the family, Gulbar Akram wrote in the post, “[we] do not condone any of his actions and would like to sincerely apologize wholeheartedly to all the victims involved in the unfortunate incident.”
The synagogue was holding its Shabbat service, which began at 10 a.m when the man took the rabbi and three others hostage. The service was streamed live on Facebook, and a man could be heard speaking. At times the man sounded angry and said he was going to die.
Nearly 200 law enforcement officials responded to the synagogue and tried to negotiate with the gunman throughout the day. One hostage was released earlier in the day.
Cytron-Walker said the hostage-taker grew “increasingly belligerent and threatening” in the last hour of the standoff, allowing the remaining three hostages to run out of an exit after Cytron-Walker threw a chair at him.
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(Dallas Morning News staff writers Krista Torralva and Kevin Krause contributed to this report.)
