British synagogue terrorist Malik Faisal Akram was on MI5 watch list during 2020

British terrorist Malik Faisal Akram was being watched by UK spies in the months before his 10-hour siege in Texas because of his links to extremism – but was let off the hook, it was revealed today.

The 44-year-old father-of six, a career criminal and reputedly a member of a ultra-conservative Islamist sect, was put under surveillance at the end of 2020 for four weeks.

But a security source said MI5 closed the case having decided that he ‘didn’t present a terrorist threat at that time’. He was also not put on the terror ‘watchlist’ that would prevent him flying to America.

The latest blunder emerged as Britain and the US were today accused of ‘dropping the ball’ after letting him fly to New York despite police already hunting for him and his links to a religious sect banned in Saudi Arabia for attempts to ‘purify Islam’.

He was also fixated with demanding the release of Lady al-Qaeda Aafia Siddiqui, a convicted terrorist in a Texan jail who is a cause célèbre for terror groups around the world.

Akram’s brother has claimed that he believes ‘someone helped him’ through immigration because he had been in and out of prison since he was a juvenile.

The terrorist, from Blackburn, England, was shot dead in Texas on Saturday night after a 10-hour siege at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville where he took a rabbi and three of his congregation hostage with a handgun and claiming to be carrying a suicide bomb.

Akram became known to British counter-terrorism police after becoming ‘completely obsessed’ with Islam and displayed extreme and disruptive behavior at Friday prayers during his most recent spell in prison.

He was also a regular at anti-Israel demonstrations and marches for the release of Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, having first been put behind bars in 1996 as a juvenile delinquent and going in and out of prison for 16 years until he found religion.

In 2001 he was banned from his local court in England, where he was a regular in the dock, for turning up to abuse staff and ranting about 9/11. He was a regular visitor to Pakistan and reportedly a member of the Tablighi Jamaat group, set up to ‘purify’ Islam and banned from Saudi after the kingdom described the group as a ‘gateway to terrorism’.

One senator, briefed on the case the Department for Homeland Security and a former Pentagon official, told British newspaper The Daily Telegraph today: ‘Certainly someone let the ball drop.’

The security services were accused of a serious ‘intelligence failure’ after a British Islamist was able to travel to the US – and MailOnline can reveal that about a fortnight ago, British police were looking for him at the Manchester home he shares with his six children.

Akram’s family have expressed their disbelief that he had been let through customs at New York’s JFK airport around January 2.

But it appears that British police were looking for him, with two detectives arriving at his home around that time, but he wasn’t there.

‘About three or four weeks ago, two detectives knocked at his door asking for him,’ said one neighbor. It was not clear whether the attempted contact was connected to his plans to travel to the US just days later.

Today it emerged that Akram has a criminal record dating back more than 25 years.

He found himself in a youth detention center as a teenager before going to an adult prison in 1996, aged 19, for violent disorder after attacking a cousin with a baseball bat.

A year later he was back in prison again, this time for the destruction of property, and then in 1999 for harassment. He is believed to have taken to selling drugs and was then in prison again in 2012 for stealing £5,000 ($6,812) in cash and phones. But the case was later stopped.

It was that stint in HMP Liverpool, that began his path to religious extremism and where he was reported by the prison Imam for ‘concerning and disruptive behavior’ at Friday prayers.

By 2017, Akram was now a devout Muslim, and friends said this became extreme after a major car crash where he broke his back and injured his head.

The former neighbor told the Telegraph: ‘I didn’t see him again until 2017 and suddenly he was dressed like a full-on religious scholar. He used to apparently sell drugs but there were rumors that he had suddenly stopped and something had changed.

‘That change [to wearing religious clothing] was shocking. None of my other friends from school have changed like that and suddenly he looks like he is extremely religious. I thought ‘what has happened to you’?’

He described him as ‘radicalized and became obsessive, absolutely obsessive’ about religion.

Today, British Parliamentarian Bob Seely told MailOnline there seemed to have been a ‘dreadful’ error at the UK and US borders caused by an ‘intelligence failure’ and it needed to be looked at.

‘This is clearly a failure of intelligence sharing. It is absolutely dreadful that he has been allowed to go to the States and hurt people. Clearly something has gone wrong somewhere,’ he said.

Another senior British politician with knowledge of the security services voiced surprise that the background had not been picked up. ‘How did he get into the US?’ they said. ‘You get picked up for walking on the cracks in the pavement.’

Yesterday, his brother, Gulbar, demanded how he was allowed into America despite a long criminal record. He said Malik was mentally ill and was mourning the death of his brother three months ago, reportedly from Covid.

Malik Faisal Akram landed at New York’s JFK Airport on January 2. The address he gave on his arrival papers appears to be the same as the Queens Hotel in New York City, which offers basic accommodation for $80-a-night.

He spent the nights between January 6 and January 13 at a Christian charity’s homeless hostel in Dallas, managing to buy a gun ‘on the street’ nearby.

On January 15 he launched the attack on the synagogue, gaining entry by asking for shelter, before being shot dead by a SWAT team 10 hours later.

Akram was known to counter-terrorism police in Britain, his family revealed.

His brother demanded to know why the 44-year-old convicted criminal had been granted a visa to enter the US, where he took four people hostage at the weekend.

Gulbar Akram asked: ‘How did he get into America? How [did] he land at JFK [in New York] airport and not get stopped?’

MI5 and counter-terrorism police refused to discuss the case as questions mounted over why border checks failed to flag him up as potential extremist.

However, last night it emerged that police had attempted to contact the hostage-taker shortly before he travelled to New York.

While detectives in Britain investigating the Texas siege continued to question two teenagers arrested in Manchester, England, last night, investigators around the world were urgently trying to establish whether Akram – who was shot dead after his hostages escaped – was operating as part of a wider organized plot.

He held four members of the congregation hostage while demanding the release of convicted terrorist, Aafia Siddiqui, known as ‘Lady Al Qaeda’. The authorities were trying to establish if there was a link between the two, though Siddiqui’s cause has been picked up by militants.

After being involved in petty crime as a young man, Akram had in recent years cut himself off from his moderate Muslim family’s ‘peaceful and tolerant’ faith and embraced fundamentalist forms of Islam.

According to his brother Gulbar, Akram spent six months in prison for violent disorder for wielding a baseball bat during a family feud with his cousins.

He became regarded as a ‘menace’ at the town’s magistrates court for hanging around abusing staff. As revealed in yesterday’s Daily Mail, the day after the 9/11 attacks he launched a shocking rant at a court usher, saying he wished he had died on one of the hijacked jets.

However Akram – who is understood to have married and lived in Manchester, England, with his six children – later told a friend he had ‘found Allah’. He ceased to worship at his father’s mosque and began attending meetings of the Tablighi Jamaat group, set up to ‘purify’ Islam.

It is banned in Saudi Arabia as ‘one of the gates of terrorism’ although its 80million supporters worldwide insist its teachings are not linked to violence.

He was pictured at demonstrations for Muslim prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in support of Palestinian independence.

‘He became quite a religious guy,’ a neighbour said. ‘If he saw someone smoking he would tell them off.’

The second of six children, Malik Faisal Akram was born in Blackburn, England, where his father, also Malik, served as president of a local mosque after emigrating from his native Pakistan.

Gulbar, 43 last night blamed the terror attack on his brother’s mental health struggles. He said he had been known to counter-terrorism police in Britain. ‘How had he gotten into America?’ he said. ‘Why was he granted a visa?’

Akram was not on a US government watchlist, a law enforcement source told CNN, with no ‘terror-related threat information’ found since the attack.

Evan Kohlmann, a counter terror expert at computer security service Flashpoint, said there would be questions in the US and the UK about ‘where the system broke down’. Commenting that Akram ‘obviously had a plan,’ he added: ‘It wouldn’t blow me away to find out he was recruited by Al Qaeda.’

‘There is a tendency to look on somebody like this and say he’s an idiot, there’s no way he was recruited, but that’s not realistic. It doesn’t take a PhD to kill somebody.’

British police and government sources refused to confirm whether he was known to officers or to MI5.

Source: Daily Mail