A former senior Scotland Yard officer has said the force will be “under huge pressure” to find alkaline attack suspect Abdul Ezedi now the case has raised “wider questions around asylum”.
Refugee Ezedi, 35, was allowed to stay in the UK despite being a convicted sex offender.
On Friday, retired Chief Superintendent Dal Babu was asked on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme whether Ezedi’s conversion to Christianity after twice being turned down for asylum would be seen by many as a “con” like 2021 Liverpool bomber Emad Al Swealmeen.
He said: “This is fast becoming more of a political story. The police will be under huge pressure to find this person.“I think there are wider questions around asylum. He claims to have converted to Christianity and I know this will feature in the review of this case.”
Mr Babu said ex-colleagues in several forces from London to Newcastle will be working around the clock deploying resources, looking at phone activity and speaking to the Afghan community for leads in the manhunt.
But Streatham MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy told host Nick Robinson she was concerned about the political debate around Ezedi’s background.
She said: “The reasons as to why he was given asylum we don’t know but there may have been some serious issues in how the criminal justice system processed the particular issue of his sex offence.
“We know that already in this country an average of two women a week are killed by their partner or former partner. We are living in a society that normalises violence against women and girls.”
Ms Ribeiro-Addy added of the incident: “It’s been absolutely awful for local people to see what happened so close to their homes.”
