A Texas man has been charged with selling a gun to the man who held four hostages inside a Texas synagogue earlier this month before being fatally shot by the FBI, the Justice Department said Wednesday, according to The Associated Press.
The man was identified as Henry “Michael” Williams. He was charged with being a felon in possession of a firearm after authorities say he sold the weapon that Malik Faisal Akram used when he entered Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas during Shabbat services on January 15, where he held the synagogue’s rabbi and three others hostage for hours.
Akram, a 44-year-old British citizen, held hostages in the Dallas-area suburb while demanding the release of a federal prisoner. The standoff ended after more than 10 hours when the rabbi threw a chair at Akram and fled with the other two remaining hostages just as an FBI tactical team was moving in.
Earlier on Wednesday, British police said they arrested another two men in the investigation into the hostage-taking incident at the Texas synagogue.
The counter-terrorism force Policing North West said the two men were arrested in the northern English city of Manchester. They were being held for questioning and have not yet been charged.
British police had earlier arrested two teenagers in connection with the hostage taking, but they were later freed without being charged.
Jeffrey Cohen, one of the hostages in the synagogue attack, told MSNBC last week that Akram was not "your typical attacker" who wanted to kill Jewish people but that he had "bought into these tropes."
"He came to the Jews because he bought into these very dangerous stories that the Jews control the world and the Jews control the government and the banks and the media. And we as good people and we as patriotic Americans, we need to challenge those things when we hear them, because these words do have consequences," Cohen recalled.
Last Thursday, the UK-based Jewish Chronicle published a recording of a phone call between the gunman and his brother in Britain which took place before Akram was shot dead by SWAT teams.
In the recording, Akram told his brother, "I'm opening the doors for every youngster in England to enter America and f*** with them”.
The gunman also boasted about his desire for martyrdom and said, "I've asked Allah for this death, Allah is with me, I'm not worried in the slightest."
