POLICE tried to find a Brit weeks before he was shot dead after taking four people hostage at a Texan synagogue.

Two officers visited a rented flat where a brother of Malik Faisal Akram previously lived.

But they were told Akram was not there and that his brother had moved to Pakistan in March 2020’s lockdown.

A neighbour in Blackburn, Lancs, said: “About three or four weeks ago, two detectives knocked at his door asking for Malik.

“They didn’t say what they wanted him for but needed to speak.”

Akram, 44, was shot dead by a SWAT team on Saturday after taking four hostages in a 12-hour siege in Colleyville, Texas.

He had flown to New York on December 29 and told authorities he’d be staying at the Queen’s Hotel.

But he travelled to Texas and spent several days at a Christian-run shelter before buying a gun.

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During the siege Akram demanded the release of terrorist Aafia Siddiqui — dubbed Lady al-Qaeda after she was convicted of trying to kill US military personnel in Afghanistan.

Questions remain over what spooks knew about Akram before he flew to the US.

He was not on a US no-fly list but it was not clear if he was on MI5’s long list of more than 20,000 suspected extremists.

Security sources confirmed Akram’s mental health would be part of the inquiry, with brother Gulbar blaming his sibling’s actions on medical issues.

Evidence from his phone is understood to have led to the precautionary arrest of two teenagers in Manchester.

Whitehall sources said there was no evidence of any threat to the UK.

Petty criminal Akram, believed to have been a follower of hate preacher Anjem Choudary, had been banned from Blackburn magistrates’ court in 2001 for telling an usher he wished he’d died on one of the 9/11 planes.

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