Why we must resist the urge to weaponise the Clapham chemical attack against asylum seekers

Rather than attack the principle of giving refuge in the UK, we should use the Abdul Ezedi case to find ways to make the asylum system work so that it protects the public, says Sean O’Grady

Abdul Ezedi, the Clapham attack suspect, who pleaded guilty to sexual assault and exposure charges in 2018, was later given asylum (Metropolitan Police)

Clearly, something has gone very wrong in the asylum system, as far as the case of Abdul Shakoor Ezedi is concerned. Now the subject of a police manhunt, he is wanted in connection with an appalling corrosive substance attack on a woman and her daughter in London, as well as injuries sustained by people who’d intervened to help. One can only imagine what horrors lie behind that dead, official phrase “life-changing injuries”, which the victims are said to have suffered.

We now learn that Ezedi was convicted of sexual offences in 2018 and after that was eventually granted asylum in 2021 or 2022, after two failed attempts. His claim was that he would have to face the Taliban if he was sent back to Afghanistan.

One decisive factor seems to be that he had converted to Christianity, and had a letter from a priest attesting to that. An immigration tribunal allowed him to stay.