Texas synagogue hostage-taker was a British citizen; two arrested in England

(Reuters) - A gunman who took four people hostage at a Dallas-area synagogue and was himself killed as federal agents stormed the temple was identified yesterday as a British citizen, while police in England said they had detained two teenagers for questioning in the investigation.

The daylong siege at the Congregation Beth Israel synagogue in Colleyville, about 16 miles northeast of Fort Worth, Texas, ended in gunfire Saturday night with all four hostages released unharmed and with the suspect dead. It was not clear whether the gunman took his own life or was slain by members of the FBI hostage rescue team.

During 10 hours of tense hostage negotiations conducted by authorities on either side of the Atlantic with help from the gunman’s family, the suspect was reported to have demanded the release of a Pakistani-born scientist serving a federal prison sentence in the Dallas-Forth Worth area.

The FBI on Sunday identified the suspect as Malik Faisal Akram, 44, a citizen of the United Kingdom but did not say how or when he entered the United States.

Akram’s brother Gulbar posted on Facebook that the suspect, from the industrial town of Blackburn in the north of England, suffered from mental illness and said relatives had spent all night at a Blackburn police station “liaising with Faisal, the negotiators, FBI etc.”