Two bodies have been pulled from the Thames in the search for Abdul Ezedi, who is suspected of attacking a woman and her children with a chemical substance in Clapham last week.
The last known CCTV footage of the suspect showed him “leaning over the railings” on Chelsea Bridge, a Metropolitan Police spokesperson said.
The two bodies found in the Thames are unrelated to last week’s attack, police said, and belong to men whose deaths are being treated as “unexpected pending further inquiries”, said Sky News.
Having failed so far to locate Ezedi’s body, police were asked how confident they were that he was dead. “I’m prepared to say that he’s gone into the water,” said Detective Superintendent Rick Sewart. “And if he’s gone into the water, then that’s the most probable outcome.”
The River Thames “at this time of year is very fast flowing”, Scotland Yard commander Jon Savell said in The Guardian, and searches over the coming days will take place at low tide. Consequently, it is “quite likely” that “he won’t appear for maybe up to a month”.
Born in Afghanistan, Ezedi arrived in the UK in 2016 hidden in a lorry. He made two unsuccessful asylum applications “before successfully appealing against the Home Office rejection by claiming he had converted to Christianity”, said The Guardian.
“He was convicted of two sexual offences in 2018 but was allowed to stay in the UK because his crimes were not serious enough to meet the threshold for deportation.”
Suspect was last seen ‘leaning over railings’ on Chelsea Bridge
