Photo: Metropolitan Police, London
London’s Metropolitan Police announced that they “strongly believe” they have found the body of the migrant linked to last month’s Clapham chemical attack. The body was discovered in the Thames on Monday, following a three-week manhunt for convicted sex offender Abdul Shokoor Ezedi.
Controversy erupted when it emerged that Ezedi was allowed to stay in Britain despite having a criminal record after exposing himself to a woman at a bus stop. Had he been deported rather than being granted ‘leave to remain,’ he could not have instigated the Clapham attack.
Court documents revealed the basis of Ezedi’s two convictions, including a sexual assault where he “intentionally touched” a woman in 2017 and a second charge, seen by The Daily Telegraph, of indecent exposure “intending that someone would see … and be caused alarm or distress.”
A friend at the time of these incidents, which added Ezedi to the UK sex offenders register for 10 years and landed him with a suspended prison sentence, also told the newspaper that his alleged conversion to Christianity was a “joke.” He said:
The idea that he is now a Christian is a joke, but he loves money and he loves his passport so maybe he did it for that reason.
Ezedi arrived in the UK in 2016 in the back of a lorry and was twice refused asylum, but was later granted ‘leave to remain’—that is, after his sex offence conviction—due to his conversion, which was vouched for by a Baptist minister.
The Church of England and other Christian groups have faced questions over apparently false conversions that allow migrants to stay in Britain. Telegraph columnist Allison Pearson asked:
What is a man like [Ezedi] even doing here? You may well ask. In what nation with the most basic concern for the welfare of its citizens could a refugee who had already proved himself to be a menace to women be granted the privilege of British residence? …
Every single person and institution in that witless, delusional chain of events is to blame for the fact that a woman is in hospital right now, heavily sedated and horribly disfigured with “life-changing injuries”, quite possibly blind.
The woman at the centre of the Clapham chemical attack remains in hospital, though her two daughters have since been discharged.
Following its discovery, the Metropolitan Police said on Tuesday:
Based on the distinctive clothing he was wearing at the time of the attack and property found on his body, we strongly believe we have recovered the body of Ezedi.
Investigations into the Clapham attack are ongoing.