STOP HIDING
Fugitive in caustic alkali attack case urged to hand himself in
POLICE have urged a badly injured chemical attack suspect to hand himself in.
Abdul Ezedi, 35, is thought to have spent 13 hours prowling the streets near the home of a 31-yearold mother before throwing a corrosive alkali substance at her and her two young children.
Ezedi, thought to be from Afghanistan, was granted asylum in 2020 after appealing against a second verdict denying it.
The appeal’s success came despite Ezedi’s admissions of sexual assault and exposure in 2018, after which he was put on the sex offender register.
This would usually mean an asylum seeker would be rejected and it is not clear why he was granted refugee status.
Ezedi, a pizza takeaway worker, has not been seen since boarding a Tube train at 9pm on Wednesday, 95 minutes after the attack in Clapham, South London.
Police have issued a new image of the fugitive, showing him with a badly injured right eye.
The woman doused with the corrosive alkaline substance was last night still sedated in hospital after suffering injuries that are expected to be “lifechanging”, police said.
Her two daughters, who are aged three and eight, are not as badly hurt as first feared.
Metropolitan Police Commander Jon Savell told reporters on Friday that significant pieces of evidence were recovered during raids on Thursday night.
He said yesterday: “We’ve got a large team of very experienced detectives leading the manhunt.
“Last night, five search warrants were executed – two in East London and three up in Newcastle.”
Dozens of officers in protective suits raided a block of flats in Leytonstone, East London, at 2am on Thursday, where Ezedi’s brother is believed to live.
Two empty containers with corrosive warnings on the label were found at an address in Newcastle after police searches, the Met has said. Cdr Savell said forensic testing would establish whether those containers had held the substance used in Clapham.
Ezedi, described by a shopkeeper in Byker, Newcastle, as respectful and polite, left his home in the city just after midnight on Wednesday and drove 280 miles to Clapham overnight.
His white Hyundai hatchback was then seen in Tooting, South London, at 6.30am – around a mile from the hotel where the mum and her daughters were living.
INJURIES
At 4.30pm he was in nearby Croydon and at 7pm his car was pictured heading for Clapham.
In a direct appeal, Cdr Savell said: “Abdul, you clearly have some very significant injuries. We’ve seen the images. You need some medical help, so do the right thing and hand yourself in.”
After his convictions at Newcastle crown court in 2018, Ezedi was given a suspended sentence and ordered to carry out 200 hours of unpaid work. He was placed on the sex offender register for 10 years. Home Office rules state: “If a person is on the sex offender register, then their application will be refused on the grounds of serious harm.” Ezedi’s first asylum application was rejected in 2016. A second, after he said he would be persecuted at home after converting to Christianity, was also denied. But a judge in Newcastle overturned that decision in 2020.
Former immigration minister Robert Jenrick said yesterday that Ezedi had tricked vicars and priests into believing he was a Christian to support his asylum claim.
Steve Smith, head of charity Care4Calais, said: “Politicians like Robert Jenrick are devoid of any ethical and moral leadership, choosing to scapegoat marginalised communities.”