It is a miracle that I’m still alive
After bomber’s ‘evil act’, brave taxi driver says:
THE taxi driver who survived the Liverpool bomb attack said yesterday it was a ‘miracle’ he was alive after ‘such an evil act’.
David Perry and his wife Rachel thanked the public for their ‘amazing generosity’ a week after the Remembrance Sunday bombing.
The father-of-two escaped just seconds before his private-hire car burst into flames at Liverpool Women’s Hospital.
It comes as the bomber Emad Al Swealmeen – who did not survive the explosion – was accused of spinning a web of lies in a bid to remain in Britain prior to the terror attack.
In his first public statement since the bombing, Mr Perry, 45, said: ‘On behalf of myself, Rachel and our family, we would like to say thank you to everyone for all your get-well wishes and for your amazing generosity. We are completely overwhelmed with it.
‘A special thanks to the staff at the Liverpool Women’s Hospital, the staff and medical team at Aintree Hospital, police and counter terrorism policing, who have all been amazing.’
Two funds set up for Mr Perry, who has been discharged from hospital, have raised more than £70,000 for his recovery.
He added: ‘I feel like it’s a miracle that I’m alive and so thankful that no one else was injured in such an evil act.
‘I now need time to try to come to terms with what’s happened and focus on my recovery both mentally and physically. Please be kind, be vigilant and stay safe.’ Al Swealmeen, 32, was born in Iraq to a Jordanian father, said to be an engineer in Dubai, and an Iraqi mother.
But in an ‘asylum screening interview’ at a Home Office building in London in May 2014, the bomber presented himself as a penniless refugee from wartorn Syria who would be killed if he was not granted asylum.
He told an official he was born in Syria and had lived there until he was ten. In a 35-page dossier, Al Swealmeen is recorded as claiming he moved to the UAE in 1999, before returning to Syria in September 2013 – at a time when the country was ravaged by civil war.
The immigration official is said to have been sceptical of the claims, but Al Swealmeen insisted he ‘had to go and see’ his parents in Deir ez-Zor, a fighting hotspot.
He claimed an ‘agent’ had then smuggled him out of the country in December 2013 and that he returned to the UAE via Jordan, The Sun reported.
The officer asked: ‘You’ve been in the UAE since you were ten. Why not stay there after you left Syria on this occasion?’
Al Swealmeen replied: ‘I wanted to see if I could help my family to leave.’ He later admitted that he used a fake Jordanian passport and visa to enter the UK. ‘I had two options – stay and die or use the passport and escape,’ he claimed.
But the officer said: ‘That’s not strictly true. At the time of the visa application you were not in Syria – you were in the UAE. So it’s not a question of “stay and die” as you’d left Syria.’ The officer added: ‘You lied and used deception to enter the UK. Why should I believe you are from Syria?’ The asylum claim was rejected a year later – but he stayed in the UK after launching a series of complicated legal challenges.
A Home Office spokesman said its new processing procedures enabled ‘the removal of those with no right to be in our country quicker’, adding: ‘We are fixing the broken asylum system.’
‘Be vigilant and stay safe’