WASHINGTON, Dec 2 (Reuters) – The suspect accused of shooting two National Guard members in an ambush in downtown Washington, D.C., last week was charged on Tuesday with murder and other offenses as he made his first court appearance, appearing remotely from a hospital bed.
A judge ordered Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, held in custody without bond, citing the “sheer terror” of the shooting blocks from the White House that killed one member of the National Guard and critically injured a second. Lakanwal pleaded not guilty to all charges.
“It is fairly clear that he came across the country, 3,000 miles, armed, with a specific purpose in mind,” Renee Raymond, a magistrate judge in Washington, D.C., Superior Court, said during the hearing.
A lawyer for Lakanwal pushed for his release, citing his lack of criminal history.
Lakanwal, an Afghan national, traveled from Washington state to the U.S. capital to carry out the attack, prosecutors alleged. A major in the Army National Guard of West Virginia shot Lakanwal and other members of the National Guard and a U.S. Secret Service officer then subdued him, according to the complaint.
Lakanwal wore a hospital gown and appeared to struggle to keep his eyes open during a roughly half-hour proceeding. A translator recounted the proceedings to him.
Lakanwal is facing four criminal counts including first-degree murder and assault with intent to kill while armed, according to a criminal complaint. The complaint alleges he yelled “Allahu akbar!” meaning “God is Greatest,” as he fired at Sarah Beckstrom, 20, and her fellow Guard member Andrew Wolfe, 24. They were in Washington to support law enforcement as part of President Donald Trump’s crackdown on crime.
Beckstrom died the following day.
Lakanwal’s status as an Afghan immigrant who entered the U.S. in 2021 under a program started by then-President Joe Biden to resettle thousands of Afghans who assisted the U.S. during the Afghanistan war quickly became a flashpoint in Trump’s immigration crackdown. He was granted asylum under Trump.
(Reporting by Ryan Patrick Jones in Toronto and Andrew Goudsward in Washington; Editing by Scott Malone, Lisa Shumaker and Alistair Bell)
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