Malik Faisal Akram, the British man who took four hostages at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on January 15, was known to British intelligence agency, MI5.

A resident of Blackburn, Lancashire, Akram had a criminal record in the UK had been on the MI5’s watchlist as a “subject of interest” in 2020. He was investigated by the agency in the second half of 2020, but was dropped as an active subject of interest after an MI5 assessment deemed that he was no longer a threat.

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By the time Akram flew to the US, believed to be a couple of weeks before the Colleyville incident, he was no longer considered an active threat by the British intelligence agency.

While all the facts about Akram’s brief time in the US is not known as of now, the 44-year-old is thought to have arrived in the US via New York’s JFK International Airport. Authorities believe that Akram acquired a handgun “on the street” shortly after his arrival to the US, and his ability to acquire a gun as a foreign national has been attributed to the lax gun laws in the country.

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On the morning of January 15, Akram entered the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville pretending to be a homeless man, and held four people, including the rabbi, hostage. He was heard demanding the release of Pakistani neuroscientist and convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, who is incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell in Fort Worth, Texas, and is serving an 86-year prison sentence for the attempted murder of a US official in 2008.

While Akram released one of the hostage around six hours into the stand-off, he did not release the rabbi and two others. The stand-off finally came to an end more than 10 hours later when a SWAT team stormed the synagogue and shot Akram dead.