by Martin Robinson at Daily Mail
Synagogue terrorist Malik Faisal Akram was being watched by British 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 Blackburn-born 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 not kept on the terror ‘watchlist’ that would prevent him flying to America, which security experts have said was a big mistake given the surveillance he had been under.
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 Blackburn terrorist, 44, 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 counter-terrorism police after becoming ‘completely obsessed’ with Islam and displayed extreme and disruptive behaviour 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, 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 US senator, briefed on the case the Department for Homeland Security and a former Pentagon official, told The Daily Telegraph today: ‘Certainly someone let the ball drop.’
The security services were today 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 two detectives called at the end-terrace house in Blackburn where he had been living, neighbours said…
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