The Home Secretary, Priti Patel, has claimed that the Remembrance Sunday Liverpool bomber suspect had exploited the UK’s “dysfunctional” asylum system in order to remain.
The Liverpool bomber suspect, Emad Al Swealmeen, had arrived in the UK from the Middle East in 2014 and had applied for asylum. His application was rejected but Swealmeen remained in the UK.
On a flight for a three-day visit to Washington DC in the US, Patel said: “The case in Liverpool was a complete reflection of how dysfunctional, how broken, the system has been in the past, and why I want to bring changes forward. It’s a complete merry-go-round and it has been exploited. A whole sort of professional legal services industry has based itself on rights of appeal, going to the courts day-in-day-out at the expense of the taxpayers through legal aid. That is effectively what we need to change.”
She then added: “These people have come to our country and abused British values, abused the values of the fabric of our country and our society. And as a result of that, there’s a whole industry that thinks it’s right to defend these individuals that cause the most appalling crimes against British citizens, devastating their lives, blighting communities — and that is completely wrong.”
