Photo: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
By: EFE
WASHINGTON – One of the hostages kidnapped in a Texas synagogue was released this Saturday in good health after being held for more than six hours, while the FBI continued to negotiate with the crime suspect, reported the local Police.
Shortly after 5 pm local time, “a hostage of gender The male was released without injury,” and was expected to be reunited with his family “as soon as possible,” the Colleyville Police Department said in a statement. , a city located at 43 kilometers (43 miles) northwest of Dallas .
The police did not contribute more details about the number of hostages that remain inside or the circumstances of the release of that first hostage, and only assured that the FBI is still negotiating I’m with the suspect.
According to a police source consulted by CNN, al At the beginning of the kidnapping there were at least four hostages inside the synagogue of the Beth Israel congregation, in Colleyville, and one of them was a rabbi.
According to US officials quoted by CNN, ABC and NBC, the suspect claims to be the brother of Pakistani scientist Aafia Siddiqui, imprisoned at a US air base near Colleyville
The kidnapper asks for the release of his sister, who is serving a sentence of 86 years in prison for having tried to kill US soldiers and FBI agents while detained in Afghanistan.
The hostage-taking occurred during a religious service in the synagogue of the Beth Israel congregation, which was being broadcast live on the institution’s website on Facebook, reported the local newspaper “Fort Worth Star-Telegram”.
More than 8,000 people connected to the video of the live broadcast once the first information emerged on social networks about what happened, until finally the broadcast was suspended without the situation inside the synagogue having been resolved.
The The video did not show what was happening inside the building, but it did show an angry man talking about religion, insisting he didn’t want to hurt anyone and saying he was going to die, according to the “Star-Telegram”.
Before the video stopped broadcasting, what appeared to be negotiations over the phone between the suspect and the agents were heard, the newspaper said.
President Joe Biden has received information about the situation in Colleyville and will remain attentive to the development of events in the coming hours, said its spokeswoman, Jen Psaki, on her Twitter account.
.@POTUS has been briefed about the developing hostage situation in the Dallas area. He will continue to receive updates from his senior team as the situation develops. Senior members of the national security team are also in touch with federal law enforcement leadership.
— Jen Psaki (@PressSec) January 11, 478256564
The Colleyville Police Department he claimed on his Twitter account that he had an elite SWAT operations team deployed to the block where the synagogue is located, confirmed that he had evacuated the surrounding area, and asked not to approach the area.
The event has led to increased police protection in various synagogues and Jewish institutions in large cities in the country, such as Dallas, New York or Los Angeles (California), to detect any possible anti-Semitic threat derived from what happened in Colleyville.
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