Malik Faisal Akram, 44, arrived in the US at Kennedy Airport in New York on 29 December and was questioned by customs officials, but as there were no red flags in the system he was allowed to enter the country.
During the standoff with police in Colleyville, Akram demanded the release of Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist who is suspected of having ties to al Qaeda and was convicted of trying to kill US troops in Afghanistan.The standoff ended when the last of the hostages ran out of the synagogue and an FBI SWAT team rushed in 10 hours into the standoff and shot Akram dead. All four hostages were unharmed.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki said:"Our understanding, and obviously we're still looking into this, is that he was checked against US government databases multiple times prior to entering the country, and the US government did not have any derogatory information about the individual in our systems at the time of entry.
She added:"We're certainly looking back ... what occurred to learn every possible lesson we can to prevent attacks like this in the future."said he was"suffering from mental health issues""There was nothing we could have said to him or done that would have convinced him to surrender," his brother Gulbar said in a statement.
Two teenagers arrested in Manchester by officers from Counter Terror Policing North West as part of the investigation into the attack have since been released.
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