(Liverpool) British counterterrorism police scrutinize the profile of Emad Al Swealmeen, who died in a taxi explosion on Sunday in Liverpool (northern England) who is, according to British media, an asylum seeker converted to Christianity.
Investigators believe the explosive device was “made” by the 32-year-old man, a taxi passenger and killed by the blast, which occurred shortly before 11 a.m. outside a women’s hospital as the UK commemorated the victims of the wars, on the occasion of “Remembrance Sunday”. Its motivations, however, remain to be determined.
“Terrorist act”
“We understand better hour by hour, but it will probably take some time, maybe several weeks, before being sure to know what happened”, said the police, who consider for now that it is a “terrorist act”.
According to British media on Tuesday, Emad Al Swealmeen is an asylum seeker from the Middle East posing as Syrian and was not known to intelligence services. He arrived in the UK several years ago and converted to Christianity there.
Its motivation “has yet to be established,” said Secretary of State for Police Kit Malthouse to the deputies, but this event constitutes “another brutal reminder of the threat linked to terrorism that we all face”.
Elizabeth and Malcom Hitchcott, a Christian couple living in Liverpool, expressed their “shock” and “sadness” when they learned that Emad Al Swealmeen, whom they had housed for months, was believed to be responsible for the explosion.
Interned in psychiatry
“He lived here for eight months, and we lived side by side. It never felt like something was wrong, ”Hitchcott told ITV. He explained that the young man left Islam to become a Christian and was baptized and confirmed at Liverpool Cathedral.
“He was very calm […] I used to pray for half an hour in the living room with him every day. I don’t think he was faking his faith, ”Mr. Hitchcott also told the Telegraph.
According to him, Emad Al Swealmeen was interned for about six months in psychiatry a few years ago after an incident in the city center involving a knife.
Mr. Hitchcott explained that the asylum application of his protege had been rejected, because the competent services did not believe that Emad Al Swealmeen was Syrian as he claimed.
Rejected asylum claims
According to the tabloid The Sun, who claims that Al-Swealmeen was Jordanian, the counterterrorism police believe that the repeated refusals of his asylum application and his psychological problems may have prompted him to act.
As part of the investigation, four men, aged 20, 21, 26 and 29, were arrested on Sunday and Monday and have since been released.
Russ Jackson, in charge of the region’s counterterrorism police, said investigators had made “significant progress” and “recovered important evidence from the Rutland Avenue address which is becoming central to the investigation.”
It was in this avenue, where Emad Al Swealmeen had recently rented accommodation, that he had borrowed a taxi on Sunday morning to go to a maternity hospital in Liverpool.
According to the BBC, investigators are trying to determine if the main charge did explode, no surrounding vehicles having been damaged, and if it contained TATP, a homemade explosive used in particular in the attack on a concert hall in Manchester in 2017. .
“True miracle”
The taxi driver, who was able to get out of the vehicle before it was consumed by the flames, was released from the hospital where he had been treated for injuries.
“The explosion happened while he was in the car and it’s a real miracle that he was able to escape,” his wife said on Facebook.
Home Secretary Damian Hinds said on Tuesday that the coronavirus pandemic may have “exacerbated” the number of people self-radicalizing online, noting on Sky News that police had foiled “more than thirty plots at an advanced stage in recent years ”.
After this attack, the United Kingdom raised Monday to “serious” the level of the terrorist threat on British soil, a month after the murder on October 15 of deputy David Amess during a parliamentary stay about sixty kilometers from London.