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| Britain | |
| Day 2: Liverpool attack suspect named as Emad al-Swealmeen, reported to be Christian convert | |
| 2021-11-16 | |
[Guardian] 32-year-old is said to have changed name to Enzo Almeni before failed asylum application in 2014 A suspected terrorist who went kaboom!outside Liverpool Women’s hospital at the weekend has been named as 32-year-old Emad al-Swealmeen. Counter Terrorism Policing North West said they "strongly believe" al-Swealmeen was the passenger who died when a taxi went kaboom!shortly before 11am on Sunday. According to reports, al-Swealmeen is believed not to be British-born and to have had Syrian and Iraqi heritage. He is said to have converted to Christianity after moving to the UK from the Middle East and was later briefly taken in by Christian volunteers Malcolm and Elizabeth Hitchcott in Liverpool. Al-Swealmeen had changed his name by deed poll to Enzo Almeni, in honour of Italian race car legend Enzo Ferrari, to sound more western on his asylum application, which subsequently failed in 2014, Hitchcott told the Daily Mail. Hitchcott told the newspaper: "He first came to the cathedral in August 2015 and wanted to convert to Christianity. He took an Alpha course, which explains the Christian faith, and completed it in November of that year. That enabled him to come to an informed decision and he changed from Islam to Christianity and was confirmed as a Christian by at least March 2017, just before he came to live with us. He was destitute at that time and we took him in." Pictures posted on Hitchcott’s Facebook profile showed the suspect smiling and posing alongside the couple during a walk a few years prior, including a picture showing al-Swealmeen during a service at Liverpool’s Anglican Cathedral. Speaking to the BBC, Elizabeth Hitchcott said: "We’re just so, so sad. We just loved him, he was a lovely guy," adding she and her husband were "very" shocked by the incident. Searches are under way at the Rutland Avenue address and a second address in Sutcliffe Street, which officers have said al-Swealmeen previously lived at, and police said they had recovered "significant items". "We continue to appeal for any information about this incident and now that we have released his name any information that the public may have about al-Swealmeen, no matter how small, may be of great assistance to us." Liverpool explosion: What we know so far [BBC]
WHAT HAPPENED? Merseyside Police were called at 10:59 GMT to reports of a car explosion at Liverpool Women's Hospital. A taxi carrying one passenger - named by counter-terrorism police as Emad Al Swealmeen - pulled up to the hospital and exploded shortly afterwards. Al Swealmeen, who had been picked up from the Rutland Avenue area and asked to be taken to the hospital about 10 minutes away, died at the scene. Russ Jackson, head of Counter Terrorism Policing North West, said the passenger appeared to have made an improvised device that caused the explosion. Nick Aldworth, a former counter terror coordinator, said investigators would be focused on what happened inside the vehicle. "They'll be looking at what sort of damage has been caused, trying to get an assessment of what might have caused that blast," he told Today. "I have to say from what I've seen there is very little blast damage - a lot of fire damage but very little blast damage. So whatever was in that vehicle was either a low yield or didn't work properly or was possibly an incendiary." WHAT'S HAPPENING ON THE GROUND? About two hours after the blast, properties on Rutland Avenue near Sefton Park, in the south-east of the city, and in the Kensington area, east of the city centre, were raided by armed officers. Three arrests took place in Sutcliffe Street, in Kensington, where witnesses reported seeing armed officers approach a terraced house. Jim Clarke, BBC North West Tonight deputy editor, said the first raid happened at about 13:00 on Rutland Avenue - roughly 0.75 miles from the hospital. The second around Sutcliffe Street and the adjacent Boaler Street - about a mile from the hospital - took place an hour later, at about 14:00. There was a heavy police presence, including police negotiators, outside the house on Rutland Avenue overnight. Several residents were evacuated and a large cordon guarded by officers was put in place. Police confirmed that a controlled explosion had been carried out as a precaution in the Sefton Park area at about 16:00 GMT as part of the investigation but there was no wider risk to the public. In a statement on Monday evening, police said the address at Rutland Avenue was becoming central to the investigation. Assistant Chief Constable Russ Jackson, from Counter-Terrorism Policing North West, said officers had made "significant progress" and had a "much greater understanding of the component parts of the device, how they were obtained and how the parts are likely to have been assembled". He said following interviews with the arrested men, police were "satisfied with the accounts they have provided" and they were released from custody. WHAT IS KNOWN ABOUT THE PASSENGER? On Monday evening, Det Ch Insp Andrew Meeks said police "strongly believe" the passenger who was killed was 32-year-old Emad Al Swealmeen. He said Al Swealmeen was believed to have lived in Sutcliffe Street for some time but had recently rented a property in Rutland Avenue. Searches were being carried out at both addresses.
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news]
Speaking exclusively to MailOnline today, Mr Hitchcott, a former British Army soldier, said he met Almeni in 2015 through his work at Liverpool Cathedral when he started expressing an interest in converting to Christianity. Police said Almeni was picked up in the Rutland Avenue area of the city. As the car reached the hospital's passenger drop-off point, it went kaboom!. Police said he had been living at a hostel for asylum seekers - run by private contracting giant Serco - in Sutcliffe Street, Liverpool, 'for some time' before renting a 'bomb factory' two miles away in Rutland Avenue. Meanwhile, ...back at the comedy club, Boogie was cracking himself up, but nobody else seemed to be getting the non-stop jokes... forensic officers continued the delicate task of searching the 'bomb factory' from where Almeni booked the taxi. Eight nearby homes have been evacuated, and officers on Monday carried out a controlled explosion on an item taken from the property in nearby Sefton Park in what they described as 'a precaution'. 'Al Swealmeen is connected to both the Rutland Avenue and Sutcliffe Street addresses where searches are still ongoing. We believe he lived at the Sutcliffe Street address for some time and had recently rented the Rutland Avenue address. Our focus is the Rutland Avenue address where we have continued to recover significant items. 'We continue to appeal for any information about this incident and now that we have released his name any information that the public may have about Al Swealmeen no matter how small may be of great assistance to us.' One theory police are probing is that the detonators on a potential bomb went kaboom!but not the main charge. Experts tell MailOnline that the bomb was probably not a high explosive such as TNT but of a hydrocarbon substance, most likely petrol. | |
| Posted by:trailing wife |
| #3 Perhaps if he’d been granted asylum as a result of the conversion, he would have stuck with Jesus. But he wasn’t, so clearly Jesus didn’t hold up his end of the bargain — and now Allah needs to be placated with bloody jihad. Or taqqiya/makarra. Very probably his ancestors became Muslim as the result of a similar calculation. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2021-11-16 15:20 |
| #2 ...Yeah, I'm guessing he had his fingers crossed when he got baptized. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2021-11-16 13:16 |
| #1 The term they omit is “taqiyya”, gaining the trust of non-believers in order to draw out their vulnerability and defeat them. And also makarra (deceit). Islam specifically allows and piloted lies and deceptions and violence against non-Islam. |
| Posted by: Greater the Anonymous5721 2021-11-16 00:25 |