A judge granted asylum to the Clapham chemical attacker despite concluding that he had told a litany of lies about various aspects of his life, court documents have revealed.
William O’Hanlon ruled that Abdul Ezedi’s conversion to Christianity was genuine, based on “compelling evidence” from a retired Baptist minister who can today be named as Roy Merrin.
The judge’s decision to grant asylum came despite him expressing concerns about the “honesty of the appellant in relation to certain aspects of his account”.
Ezedi attacked a mother and her two children with a corrosive alkali substance in Clapham, south London, after driving from his home in Newcastle upon Tyne in January.
Hours later he walked to Chelsea Bridge and threw himself into the Thames. His body was recovered weeks later.
Details of the decision were disclosed on Tuesday after several media outlets, including The Times, fought for the release of the documents relating to the first-tier tribunal hearing in October 2020, which granted Ezedi asylum at the third time of asking.
The Home Office had rejected Ezedi’s claim for asylum based on his Christian conversion, claiming that he had “used religion for his own ends”.
In his interview with a Home Office case worker, Ezedi had claimed he read the Bible every day for three years.
The caseworker questioned him, asking what the Old Testament was about. Ezedi replied: “Jesus Christ.”
When challenged to name Jesus’s main followers, Ezedi replied: “Simon, Peter, Jacob, Andrew … 12 people, disciples.”
Asked what God created on the third day, he responded: “Good Friday and Easter Sunday and Resurrection Day.”
O’Hanlon said Ezedi had shown “a lack of credibility” in his previous claim for asylum and humanitarian protection. These included falsely claiming he was a Shia Muslim. A judge in a previous hearing had found he had worshipped as a Sunni Muslim for “many years”.
Another area that “cast doubt upon the appellant’s honesty” was Ezedi’s oral evidence that his brother had been killed in Afghanistan when the Taliban had dropped a bomb on their home. Ezedi had stated in previous evidence that his brother was shot outside a mosque.
A third discrepancy was his claim never to have worked in the UK, despite previously having stated he had a job as a car mechanic.
However, O’Hanlon said that he had to make a decision about his claim to have converted to Christianity and he had concluded that this evidence was consistent.
He said that his evidence had been supported by Merrin, the retired minister, who had known Ezedi since he started attending Grange Road Baptist Church in Jarrow, Tyne and Wear, in February 2016.
As part of Ezedi’s supporting document bundle, he included photos of himself handing out church leaflets in Newcastle city centre, claiming to engage in “street ministry”, a photo of him being baptised by Merrin and a congratulatory card on his baptism from other members of the church.
The bundle also included a safeguarding contract that was drawn up by Baptists Together following Ezedi’s conviction for sexual assault and exposure.
The contract stated: “This contract of agreement is an important part of the church’s responsibility to safeguard the wellbeing of all those involved in church life.”
It named two people who would support Ezedi and imposed conditions on his visits to church, including “Ezedi will stay in the vicinity of at least one of the male supporters named in this contract”.
His supporters were required to sit near him in church and he was allowed to attend only the Sunday service.
Ezedi gave a statement through his lawyer, Collingwood Immigration Services, which said: “Obviously I am deeply ashamed of my conviction and what has happened. I have learnt a lot from this conviction. In addition, my faith tells me I have to respect people, I have to respect their privacy and their wishes and not to go to people when they don’t allow me and I shouldn’t tell lies.”
He was convicted in February 2018 of exposing himself to a woman he had befriended and pulling her trousers down. She later told The Sun that he was a “danger to women” who should have been jailed and deported.
Baptists Together said: “One of the most consistent and explicit teachings in the Bible is to “welcome the stranger. Baptists Together did not corporately support or sponsor Abdul Ezedi’s asylum application.
“The safeguarding contract was … agreed between the church and Abdul Ezedi with guidance from local and regional safeguarding leads using our national template document of the time.
“This was to show 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.”
Merrin declined to comment.
