Jihad Al-Shamie, the Syrian-born British national who police say attacked a synagogue in the U.K. on Thursday that led to the deaths of two worshippers, was out on bail on suspicion of rape at the time, according to multiple reports.
Authorities had said that Al-Shamie was not known to them before his terror attack on the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation Synagogue in Manchester despite being investigated for an alleged rape earlier this year.
Al-Shamie was fatally shot by police after plowing his vehicle into a crowd of worshippers on Yom Kippur — the holiest day of the Jewish year — and stabbing them.
Counterterrorism police are also investigating whether Al-Shamie was behind a death threat sent to a former Conservative member of Parliament in 2012. Tory MP John Howell told The Jerusalem Post then that he feared for his life after receiving emails from someone who called himself "Jihad Alshamie," saying the MP deserved "to die" over his support for the Jewish state.
"The last thing I want to appear as is a drama queen, but you have to take seriously a threat when it says, 'I would like to see you dead,'" Howell told the Post at the time.
Greater Manchester Police confirmed Friday that one of the two men killed — and another injured — were accidentally shot by officers as they responded to the attack. Police said they fired upon Al-Shamie as he tried to force his way into the synagogue; the men who were shot by police were trying to keep the synagogue door shut to prevent Al-Shamie from entering.
"It is believed that both victims were close together behind the synagogue door as worshippers acted bravely to prevent the attacker from gaining entry," GMP chief constable Stephen Watson said in a statement.
No further details were reported about the rape allegedly committed by Al-Shamie, but it was one of a number of crimes that Al-Shamie is thought to have committed, according to reports.
"He was on nobody's radar for terrorism, but he definitely had a criminal record, though nothing to suggest he was going to do anything like this," a police source told The Guardian.
The Daily Mail reported that Al-Shamie had recently separated from his wife and young son and was struggling with debt. He had been living at home with his mother and a brother in Langley Crescent, Prestwich, Greater Manchester.
Al-Shamie moved with his family from Syria to the U.K. and was granted citizenship in 2006. Reports conflict on whether he was a young child or a teenager upon moving to England.
Mark Swanson ✉
Mark Swanson, a Newsmax writer and editor, has nearly three decades of experience covering news, culture and politics.