On Friday, a convicted sex offender who has been repeatedly refused asylum in the UK and wanted for a chemical attack that left several people injured, including a blinded mother and her young daughters, was shown the suspect’s face. A badly defaced wanted poster was also posted.
Abdul Shakoor Ezzedi, a 35-year-old pizzeria worker who arrived from Afghanistan in 2016, allegedly threw an alkaline substance and injured at least a dozen people on Wednesday night. BBC reported.
A 31-year-old woman was blinded and her two daughters, aged three and eight, were injured in the “horrifying” attack in Clapham, an upscale south London neighborhood, the Metropolitan Police said.
Three other women and a man who came to help sustained minor burns, and five police officers were also injured.
Police said Mr Ezzedi was last seen buying a bottle of water on surveillance footage along the River Thames in north London, about an hour after the 7.30pm attack, and that he was last known to have died. announced that the image had been released.
“The image shows Ezedi with what appears to be a significant injury to the right side of his face,” police said, with a large area of his face around his right eye covered in gruesome scars.
“This is what makes him distinctive.”
Police said in an update Friday that he is believed to have disappeared from the area aboard the subway.
The mother who was attacked “suffered life-changing injuries,” police Commander John Sabel said Friday.
The mother, who was not identified, was admitted to the hospital in critical but stable condition. Sabel said her children also remain hospitalized with injuries that are not believed to be life-altering.
One witness told the BBC that the attack was “like a horror movie”, as he saw the suspect lift the child over his head and throw him to the ground like a “ragdoll”.
Despite being convicted of sexual assault and exposure in 2018, Ezzedi was refused asylum twice before being granted permission to remain in 2022. The Telegraph reported.
For the sexual assault charge, he was sentenced to nine weeks in prison, suspended for two years, similar to parole in the United States. As a result of the revelations, he was sentenced to 36 consecutive weeks in prison, suspended for two years, the BBC reported.
His third asylum application was successful after a priest vouched for his conversion to Christianity and claimed he was “fully committed” to his new religion, the Telegraph reported.
Ezzedi had claimed that his life would be at risk if he was sent back to Afghanistan.
Workers at the Biker butcher shop in Newcastle, where Mr Ezzedi lived for about a year, said they were “appalled” that staff at the pizzeria had been involved in the attack.
The Telegraph reported that Ezzedi had been at the halal store the day before the attack, and that he had told an employee about his plans to return to Afghanistan one day “to find a wife.”
“He works at a pizza shop. Every two weeks he used to come here to buy half a sheep,” the butcher told the outlet.
“He would say, ‘I work at a pizza shop in the evenings, but I don’t have time to shop, and the shop closes when I finish work.’ “You’ll pay £50 or £60 for the meat. He said he put the meat in the freezer,” he said.
The employee added, “He never bought alcohol. He was a good Muslim. Some Muslims buy alcohol. But he never bought alcohol.” was.”
A spokesman for Chancellor Rishi Sunak declined to comment on Ezzedi’s immigration status pending an ongoing police investigation.
But he told reporters: “The prime minister does not believe foreign criminals should remain in the country and put our people at risk.”
Superintendent Gabriel Cameron said he had “no idea” of Ezzedi’s motives but was “completely confident” he would be arrested.
