‘NO BUSINESS’

Man Who Sold Gun to Texas Synagogue Attacker Gets 8 Years

Malik Faisal Akram held four hostages captive during a 10-hour standoff with police on Jan. 15.

The man who sold a firearm to a British national who used it to hold four victims captive inside a Texas synagogue has been sentenced to nearly eight years behind bars. Henry “Michael” Dwight Williams, a previously convicted felon, pleaded guilty in June to selling the semi-automatic Taurus G2C pistol to Malik Daisal Akram just a couple of days before Akram used it in the hostage crisis in Colleyville. The U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Texas announced Tuesday that Williams received a sentence of 95 months. Authorities tied the pair together via cell phone records dating back to Jan. 11, according to the Department of Justice. “This defendant, a convicted felon, had no business carrying–much less buying and selling–firearms,” said U.S. Attorney Chad Meacham in a statement. “Whether he suspected his buyer would use the gun to menace a community of faith is legally irrelevant: In the U.S., convicted felons cannot possess firearms.”