The suspect in the Clapham chemical attack was primarily assisted in his asylum application by a Baptist minister and not the Catholic Church, it has emerged.
Abdul Shokoor Ezedi, an Afghan, is suspected of throwing a corrosive alkaline substance over a woman and two children in South London, leaving the 31-year-old woman with such “life-changing” injuries to her face that she is being kept under sedation in hospital. Her two daughters, aged eight and three, are being treated for burns.
The Catholic Church was accused in the media of assisting and enabling Ezedi, 35, who is also a convicted sex offender, to stay in the UK when it was rumoured that “a priest” provided him with a reference for his asylum application.
A government source has told the Daily Mail, however, that the reference was in fact provided by a Baptist minister who presides over a chapel in the North East of England, where Ezedi lived.
“The [reference] that really made a difference was from the Baptist church,” a government source said.
“One personal written submission talked of knowing Ezedi for four years, [how] he had been attending church and they thought he was a genuine convert.”
According to the report, the government source said that Ezedi was also helped by the Catholic Church though the Mail did not give any details of what such helped entailed.
The Diocese of Hexham and Newcastle, where Ezedi lived, emphatically denied assisting him beyond the provision of toiletries and food tokens through its Justice and Peace Refugee Project.
A diocesan spokesman said: “After checking local parish records and central records and after consulting with clergy we have no indication that Abdul Ezedi was received into the Catholic faith in this diocese, or that a Catholic priest of this diocese gave him a reference.
“We do not know which Christian church received him nor which Christian minister gave him a reference.
“We can confirm that Abdul Shakoor Ezedi visited our diocesan Justice and Peace Refugee Project, a charitable venture which assists a wide range of people who come to us in need,” he added.
“The diocese will assist the police investigations in any way we can. We keep the victims in our prayers and hope that justice is done soon.”
The Justice and Peace Refugee Project gives support only in the form of food and toiletries to clients referred by the St Vincent de Paul Society.
The project is not involved in any casework around asylum claims and therefore does not employ caseworkers. Nor does it seek to recruit converts to Christianity.
Ezedi, who is still on the run after five days, entered the UK in a lorry in 2016 and claimed asylum but was refused.
He nevertheless remained in the country, living in Newcastle, and went on to commit sexual assault and indecent exposure, but escaped jail with a two-year suspended sentence.
A second application for asylum was also rejected, even after he claimed that his life was in danger from the Taliban because he had allegedly become a Christian.
He was not deported from the country, however, and went on to make a third application for asylum in October 2020.
Acquaintances of the man have since told the Daily Telegraph that he remained a “good Muslim” who bought half a Halal sheep every two weeks.
The police have offered a reward of £20,000 for information leading to the arrest of Ezedi.
Further concerns about Ezedi possibly gaming the system by claiming to be Christian were raised when it emerged that as many as 40 asylum seekers who have entered Britain illegally and are now held on the Bibby Stockholm barge have converted, or are in the process of converting, to Christianity.
A Baptist church in Weymouth has baptised people who are being held on the barge.
The problem of fake conversions came to the fore in 2021 when Emad Al Swealmeen, a Jordanian asylum seeker who became an Anglican in 2015, attempted to blow himself up in at Remembrance Day parade in Liverpool.
The attack led Monsignor Michael Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican Bishop of Rochester who now serves as a priest in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham, to accuse churches of naivety in their treatment of asylum seekers.
Adult baptisms in the Catholic Church usually follow an RCIA course and are fully documented and recorded.
Photo: Image from CCTV of Ezedi following the alledged attack – with injuries to the right side of his face – at a Tesco store in Caledonian Road on 31 January 2024, released by Metropolitan Police.
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