Texas synagogue jihadi had been investigated by MI5, seen as posing ‘no credible threat’

This shows the abject inability of MI5 to spot jihadis, which is not surprising, since British officials, like American officials, are in complete denial about what they’re all about.

“Texas synagogue siege: British man who took four hostage in Colleyville ‘had been investigated by MI5,’” by Deborah Haynes, Sky News, January 18, 2022:

The British man who was shot dead after taking four people hostage at a synagogue in Texas had been investigated by MI5, Sky News understands.

The Security Service began looking into Malik Faisal Akram, 44, in the second half of 2020 to assess whether he posed a security threat, a Whitehall source said.

The suspicion that had been raised about him was related to Islamist terrorism.

He had also been in prison three times, between 1996 and 2012, for a range of offences including violent disorder, harassment and theft, Sky News understands.

Akram, who was from Blackburn in Lancashire, took four people, including a rabbi, hostage at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, Texas, on Saturday.

He is said to have demanded the release of Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, who was convicted of trying to kill US army officers in Afghanistan, and is in prison in Texas.

Akram was shot dead by an FBI SWAT team 10 hours into the stand-off and all four hostages were released unharmed.

Sky News understands he arrived in the US via New York’s JFK International Airport shortly before the new year before buying the handgun he used in the siege.

MI5 concluded ‘no credible threat to national security’

Questions have now been raised into how he was able to enter the US with a criminal record and being known to MI5.

Its so-called “short-lead investigation” into Akram concluded that there was no “credible threat to national security at that time”, the source said.

It meant that no longer term investigation or further monitoring of Akram was carried out.

“He never reached the threshold” to justify further investigation, the source said.

The source declined to say how long Akram had been looked into other than to say that the investigation had lasted more than four weeks and either ended in the back half of 2020 or by early 2021….

However while on remand at HMP Liverpool he was reported by the prison imam for “concerning and disruptive behaviour” at Friday prayers.

That last sentence is meant to imply that he is not really a Muslim and that his behavior cannot be ascribed to the influence of Islamic texts and teachings, despite coinciding with their exhortations in every way.