Fresh details have emerged about the failed attempts by the Liverpool hospital bomber to claim asylum in the UK.
Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, died when his home made device, packed with ball bearings, exploded in a taxi outside the city’s Women’s Hospital last November.
The Iraqi born terrorist arrived in the UK on a Jordanian passport in April 2014 and claimed asylum six days later, insisting he was a Syrian refugee.
His claim was dismissed by the Home Office the following November.
Language analysis revealed he was from Iraq and an immigration judge concluded he had no Syrian connections.
But despite losing two appeals the following year, he was allowed to stay in the country.
And in 2017 he made a second asylum claim under a new name, Enzo Almeni, after converting to Christianity.
This second application was also turned down but again he was allowed to stay and launched an appeal in January last year.
The Home Office does not comment on individual cases but said in a statement: “We are fixing the broken asylum system. The New Plan for Immigration will require people to raise all protection-related issues up front to tackle the practice of making multiple and sequential claims and enable the removal of those with no right to be in our country more quickly.”
An inquest in December heard Al Swealmeen had told his brother of his plan to do “something bad” before the hospital explosion on Remembrance Sunday.
The hearing was told he had booked a taxi from a flat in Sefton Park, Liverpool, where he had built his bomb, and told the driver, David Perry, “Women’s Hospital”.
As the taxi arrived outside the hospital’s front entrance, minutes before 11am on November 14, the bomb exploded.
The blast, captured on hospital CCTV, sent the front windscreen flying 16 metres before it smashed into a tree.
Mr Perry, 45, said it felt as if a wagon had hit the back of his car. He blacked out but came round seconds later and managed to scramble from the blazing car.
He suffered three fractures to the bottom of his back and damaged eardrums, told a security guard: “The b * d tried to bomb me.”
Despite his new found Christian beliefs, the inquest heard a Koran and prayer mat were found in Al Swealmeen’s belongings.
And the coroner Andre Rebello said: “It was fairly evident that he carried out the religious duties of someone who is a follower of Islam.”
In a narrative conclusion, Mr Rebello added: “This device could have only been manufactured with murderous intent. Fortunately there was only one victim.”
