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Synagogue Hostage Taker Was Kicked Out Of Mosque Days Earlier For Erratic Behavior, Had Been On UK Watchlist

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Laurel Duggan Social Issues and Culture Reporter
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Malik Faisal Akram, the man who held four Jewish people hostage at a Texas synagogue Saturday, had been removed by security from an Irving, Texas, mosque ten days earlier after a verbal altercation with employees who told him he could not stay overnight.

Akram had also been on the British security service’s watchlist before being classified as a “former subject of interest” at some point in 2021, BBC News reported.

“He became agitated and almost confrontational, telling the folks there that ‘you’ll be judged by the Lord Almighty for, you know, not helping out a fellow Muslim brother,” mosque employee Khalid Hamideh told CNN.

The employee Akram confronted did not speak on the record but reportedly told Hamideh that there was no indication he would commit political violence, according to CNN. Akram reportedly returned to the mosque the following day, asked for permission to pray there and left without issue after praying.

Akram, a British national, was shot and killed in a confrontation with the FBI Saturday after holding a rabbi and congregants hostage for 11 hours at a synagogue in Colleyville, near Dallas, Texas. He said the U.S. “only cares about Jewish lives,” The Washington Post reported, and he demanded a Pakistani woman serving 86 years in prison for terrorism charges at a nearby federal facility be released during the synagogue attack. (RELATED: Tucker Confronts Ted Cruz Over Calling Capitol Rioters ‘Terrorists’)

All of the hostages escaped alive. The FBI is investigating the attack as a terrorist incident targeting the Jewish community after initially ruling out antisemitism as a motive. Two teenagers were arrested in the U.K. Sunday in connection to the attack.

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