Henry Dwight Williams, a felon, sold a pistol to Malik Faisal Akram, the man who took four people hostage in January at Congregation Beth Israel in Colleyville, Texas, prosecutors said.
The man who sold a gun to a British national who used the weapon to take four people hostage at a Texas synagogue in January was sentenced on Monday to nearly eight years in prison, the Justice Department said.
The man, Henry Dwight Williams, 33, who had previously been convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, pleaded guilty in June to being a felon in possession of a firearm in U.S. District Court in the Northern District of Texas, prosecutors said.
Mr. Williams sold the pistol to Malik Faisal Akram two days before Mr. Akram used it to take four people hostage inside Congregation Beth Israel of Colleyville, a Fort Worth suburb, on Jan. 15, the Justice Department said. Mr. Akram, 44, was killed by an F.B.I. hostage-and-rescue team after a harrowing 11-hour ordeal, during which one hostage was released and the three others escaped unharmed.
Chad Meacham, the U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas, said in a statement on Monday that “this defendant, a convicted felon, had no business carrying — much less buying and selling — firearms.”
“Whether he suspected his buyer would use the gun to menace a community of faith is legally irrelevant,” he added. “In the U.S., convicted felons cannot possess firearms.”
Suzy Vanegas, a lawyer who represented Mr. Williams, did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment on Monday.
The standoff prompted about 200 local, state and federal law enforcement officers to converge on the synagogue, capturing the nation’s attention over what President Biden described as “an act of terror.”
Federal prosecutors said they had tied Mr. Williams to Mr. Akram, who lived in Blackburn in northern England, through an analysis of cellphone records showing that the two had exchanged calls in the days before the hostage situation.
The Dallas Police Department arrested Mr. Williams on Jan. 24 on an outstanding warrant and further questioned him, according to the complaint.
Mr. Williams confirmed that he had sold the gun to Mr. Akram at an intersection in south Dallas, prosecutors said.
On Jan. 11, 2022, Mr. Williams was in contact with Mr. Akram, who was seeking to purchase a gun, according to a criminal complaint.
Mr. Williams told F.B.I. agents that he had recalled meeting “a man with a British accent” but did not know that person’s name, the complaint states.
Mr. Williams said that he sold the gun, which was manufactured in Brazil, to Mr. Akram for $150 on Jan. 13, according to the complaint. Mr. Akram told Mr. Williams that it would be used “for intimidation” as means to “get money” from someone who had an outstanding debt with him, the complaint states.
Mr. Akram had been “a subject of interest” on a security watch list maintained by MI5, Britain’s domestic counterintelligence service. An investigation by the agency in 2020 concluded that Mr. Akram was not a terrorist threat at that time.
Mr. Akram traveled to the United States before the New Year. His brother Gulbar Akram described him as a deeply troubled man with mental health issues.
During the standoff at Congregation Beth Israel, Mr. Akram had referred to Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who was sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 for trying to kill American military officers in Afghanistan.
Experts have said that opposition to Ms. Siddiqui’s imprisonment has become a cause cited by jihadist militants in several countries. She is serving her sentence at a prison in Fort Worth, 24 miles from the synagogue that Mr. Akram targeted.
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