A migrant suspected of carrying out a chemical attack on a mother and her two daughters is a convicted sex offender who was allowed to stay in the UK after a priest said he had converted to Christianity. As of Friday evening, he was still on the loose.
Abdul Shokoor Ezedi, 35, is at the centre of a nationwide manhunt after the “targeted” attack in Clapham, London on Wednesday night, which police say left the mother and one of her daughters with “potentially life-changing” injuries. Her other daughter was also injured, along with three passers-by who intervened and five police officers.
On Thursday night, it emerged that Ezedi entered the UK illegally in 2016 after arriving from Afghanistan in the back of a lorry. He was twice refused asylum and in 2018 was convicted of “sexual assault/exposure” and given a suspended prison sentence.
Despite his criminal convictions, The Telegraph reports that he was then granted “leave to remain”—permission to stay in the country—in 2021 or 2022 after claiming to have converted to Christianity. A priest vouched for his conversion and said he was “wholly committed” to the faith. Ezedi argued he would face persecution if he were deported to his native Afghanistan.
Witnesses to Wednesday’s horrific attack say Ezedi threw a corrosive substance, later confirmed to be an alkali, over the mother and her daughters, leaving the woman screaming “my eyes, my eyes.” He then picked up one of the children, held her in the air, and “smashed her to the floor.”
Ezedi then attempted to flee in a car, hitting the woman in the process, before crashing into another vehicle and fleeing on foot. He was last seen later that evening in North London.
One witness told The Telegraph the attack seemed to have been committed “out of pure hate.”
What was so strange was he was so composed about it. How can you do that to a child? How can you do that to a woman?
Police say Ezedi was also injured in the attack and on Thursday night released an image of him, badly disfigured.
The Home Office is now under pressure to explain why Ezedi was granted leave to remain despite his sex offence conviction.
Lee Anderson, former deputy chairman of the Conservative Party, told The Telegraph:
There should be a condition on any asylum being granted that if you commit a crime, you go back to your country. He cannot claim he is being persecuted and at risk when he is coming to the UK and committing crimes.
It should apply whether it is shoplifting or another crime. That would make us a safer country. They should find him and send him straight back. No messing about.
Miriam Cates, who serves as co-chair of the New Conservatives group of MPs, echoed Anderson’s comments:
This man should never have been granted asylum in this country and we need to get to the bottom of how he was able to be granted leave to remain. This brings home the enormous security threat that this country faces from thousands of illegal migrants entering the UK each year.
Robert Jenrick, the former immigration minister who quit over the government’s Rwanda plan last year, called on the home secretary to carry out a detailed review of Ezedi’s case.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday morning:
It appears from what little we know of this case that this is an individual whose asylum or humanitarian protection in the UK was granted by a tribunal, so probably by a judge rather than Home Office officials, despite the fact that he had been convicted of a sexual offence and on the basis of evidence which … may well be spurious or insubstantial, such as this suggestion that he had converted to Christianity. I think we need to investigate the particular circumstances.
In November 2021, it emerged that a terrorist who blew himself up outside a maternity hospital in Liverpool had falsely converted to Christianity before launching his final asylum claim. Emad al-Swealmeen, 32, had been baptised and confirmed at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral in 2017, but police found a Koran and prayer mat at his apartment after the attack.
The attack has prompted further widespread unease about the failings of the UK asylum system, coinciding with criticism of the police for slowly staggering the release of details about the suspect (mostly referred to as “a man”) during the time-sensitive early hours of the manhunt.
