The British gunman who held four people hostage in a Texas Reform synagogue was urged to surrender by his brother in their final phone call, it has emerged, BBC reports.
An audio recording of the conversation was obtained by media. In the call, which gunman Malik Faisal Akram made to his family in Blackburn as the siege was going on, he tells his brother he has “come to die”.
Akram, 44, was shot dead by the FBI after the 10-hour standoff in Colleyville, near Dallas.
The recording of the phone call was obtained from a security source, the Jewish Chronicle says. It reveals the efforts made by Akram’s family to get him to surrender – as well as Akram’s deteriorating mental state and the increasing tension inside the synagogue. In the clip, his brother Gulbar tries repeatedly to talk him into surrendering, telling him that his hostages are innocent people and asking him to think about his children.
But the gunman tells his brother he has set his heart on dying and he wanted to “go down as a martyr.”
“I’ve only been here two weeks and I’ve got them all at gunpoint,” he says, later adding: “I’m coming back home in a body bag.”
In a barely coherent rant, thick with expletives, he rails against Jews and US military actions in the Middle East. He repeatedly calls for convicted Pakistani neuroscientist Aafia Siddiqui, imprisoned in nearby Fort Worth, to be released. She is serving an 86-year prison sentence over attempts to kill US soldiers in Afghanistan. Akram also tells his brother: “I’ve prayed to Allah for two years for this.”
{Matzav.com}
