The suspect accused of Washington DC murders of two foreign officials

The suspect accused of setting two Israeli employees of the embassy outside of a Jewish museum in Washington DC has been accused of murder in the first degree, as well as the murder of foreign officials and related firearms.

The attack on Wednesday evening is being investigated as a hate crime, and more charges are expected, the American lawyer Jeanine Pirro said at a press conference.

“This is an eligible eligible case,” she said on Thursday, and added that it is too early to say whether public prosecutors will decide to look for a death sentence.

Steve Jenson, from the FBI’s Washington DC Field Office, called the murders “an act of terror and led violence against the Jewish community”.

Few Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim were shot around 9:08 PM Local time (02:08 BST) outside of an event in the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington DC on Wednesday, the police said. The suspect opened the fire on a group of four that left the event and killed the two victims, the police said.

The police identified the suspect as 30-year-old Elias Rodriguez from Chicago. He was arrested on the spot shortly after the shooting.

Officials said he was seen outside the museum before he opened fire. Eyewitnesses told the BBC that he was initially mistaken for a traumatized bystander and received the help in the museum.

A witness, Yoni Kalin, said that people “calmed him down”. “We knew little that he was someone who executed people in cool blood,” he said.

The police said that the suspect also called “Free Palestine” before he was taken in custody.

The suspect landed in the Washington DC area the day earlier, Jenson said, and researchers are still merging his place of residence for the attack. According to a statement, officials believe that he flew from Chicago to Washington DC on Tuesday for a work conference.

Social media accounts that are linked to the suspect show that he has been working at the American Osteopathic Information Association (AOIA) in Chicago since 2024.

During his hearing on Thursday, the suspect was accused and ordered to stay in detention. His next hearing was planned for June 18.

The ambassador of Israel in the US Yechiel Leiter said shortly after the shooting that Mr. Lischinsky was planning to put MS Milgrim during a coming trip they intended to have Jerusalem.

“They were a nice couple,” Leiter said at a press conference.

A Wake for Mrs. Milgrim was expected on Thursday in her hometown Kansas City. She had previously spoken about her fears of anti -Semitism in American public life. In 2017, She was interviewed by a local TV station After her school in Kansas, a Nazi wastika was destroyed.

“I am worried to go to my synagogue, and now I have to worry about safety at school and that should not be a thing,” said Mrs. Milgrim, who was in her last year of high school at that time.

The police said that the suspect was not on their radar and has no earlier interactions with law enforcement. They said he had admitted to the attack and is supposed to have acted alone.

The gun used in the attack was a 9mm gun that was legally purchased in Illinois in March 2020 and was taken to Washington in his checked luggage. Illinois has some of the most limiting weapons in the US.

Social media accounts that are linked to the suspect also indicate that he was heavily involved in the pro-Palestinian protest movement. Researchers said they worked to verify writings online, supposedly written by him, and accused Israel of Genocide in Gaza, criticized American policy and discussing the use of political violence.

A house connected to the suspect in Chicago was searched on Thursday, and the authorities also said that they searched his electronic devices.

One of his neighbors in Chicago, John Wayne Fry, said reporters that he lived in the same apartment building for about a year as the suspect.

The suspect showed a photo outside of his apartment of a Palestinian American child who was murdered in Chicago in 2023, said Mr. Fry.

The man who killed the six -year -old Wadee Alfayoumi was convicted of hate crimes earlier this month. Officials said he was motivated by hatred for Islam and the conflict in Gaza.

It is unclear whether the suspect had direct contact with the boy’s family.

Jojo Kalin, one of the organizers of the Washington DC event, told the BBC that the event that the victims attended was aimed at building a coalition to help people suffering in Gaza in the midst of the current Israeli-Hamas war.

She added that it is “deep ironic for what we discussed, was a bridge building and then we were all overlooked with so much hatred”.

The attack was convicted by world leaders, including British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who said he “thoroughly” condemn the “anti -Semitic attack” in Washington DC.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the attack “a horrible anti -Semitic murder” and added that safety would be increased for Israeli representatives and diplomatic missions worldwide.

US President Donald Trump has also shared anti -Semitism in response to the attack, writing on his social media platform Truth Social that “hatred and radicalism have no room in the US.”

Trump and Netanyahu later spoke by telephone about the incident, where the American president expressed his Israeli counterpart, according to an reading of the call.

With reporting from Mike Wendling in Chicago