A British judge decided to grant asylum status to the Clapham chemical attacker and accepted his supposed conversion to Christianity as genuine, despite determining that he had lied about numerous aspects of his life and failed to demonstrate a basic understanding of Christianity.
In January, Abdul Ezedi, a 35-year-old from Afghanistan who had illegally entered the country on the back of a lorry in 2016, attacked a mother and her two children with a corrosive alkali chemical in the Clapham area of South London. The attacker successfully fled from the scene but is said to have later thrown himself into the River Thames, where police said his body was discovered weeks later.
Now court documents provided to several British news outlets revealed how the illegal migrant was granted asylum in the country in 2020 after being rejected by the Home Office twice before. The Home Office also questioned the validity of Ezedi’s conversion to Christianity, with the department concluding that the migrant was attempting to use “religion for his own ends”, with false conversions being a common tactic among asylum seekers, who then argue that they would face persecution for their newfound faith if deported back to their homeland.
Despite claiming to have read the Bible every day for years, Ezedi was unable to answer basic questions about Christianity, stating for instance according to The Times that the Old Testament was about “Jesus Christ” and that on the third day, God created “Good Friday and Easter Sunday and Resurrection Day.”
Nevertheless, Judge William O’Hanlon ruled that there was “compelling evidence” of Abdul Ezedi’s conversion being genuine and therefore granted him asylum in the UK. In addition to the illegal migrant’s limited understanding of the religion he supposedly believed in, Judge O’Hanlon was also aware of Ezedi demonstrating a lack of “honesty of the appellant in relation to certain aspects of his account”.
For instance, the would-be attacker was found to have lied during his initial asylum request, claiming that he was a Shia Muslim when in reality he was a follower of the Sunni branch of the faith. He also gave radically different accounts about the death of his brother, in one instance claiming the Taliban killed him in a bombing attack on their home while telling others that he was shot outside of a Mosque. The migrant also tried to claim that he had never worked in the UK after previously telling immigration officials that he had worked as a mechanic.
However, Judge O’Hanlon, based on evidence provided by retired Baptist minister Roy Merrin decided that Ezedi was telling the truth about his conversion. Merrin provided the court with various pieces of evidence, including pictures of them handing out leaflets during a “street ministry” in Newcastle as well as evidence of him having gone through a baptism.
The minister also provided the court with a contract drawn up by Baptists Together after Ezedi’s conviction of exposure and sexual assault in 2018 — which was apparently not enough to have him deported — which meant to safeguard other members of the church, stating that “Ezedi will stay in the vicinity of at least one of the male supporters named in this contract”.
Baptists Together denied sponsoring or “corporately supporting” Ezedi’s asylum application, and said that the safeguarding contract showed “the church had sufficiently risk assessed Abdul Ezedi’s attendance at church, ensuring the safety of the congregation and considering if it was appropriate for him to attend.”
In addition to the lax legal system, churches in England have come under heavy criticism for appearing to help illegal migrants game the system with false conversions to increase their chances of being granted asylum.