LONDON
\nThe man who died in a botched bomb attack in the northern English city of Liverpool on Sunday had planned the blast for at least seven months, police said Wednesday.
\nIraq-born Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, rented a property in the city in April and had made \u201crelevant purchases\u201d for his bomb since \u201cat least\u201d that time, said Russ Jackson, who heads counter-terrorism policing in northwest England.
\nAl Swealmeen\u2019s improvised device went off in the back of a taxi outside a Liverpool hospital moments before Britain marked Remembrance Sunday last weekend.
\nHe was killed in the fireball, while the quick-thinking taxi driver escaped with minor injuries after reportedly locking Al Swealmeen inside his cab.
\n\u201cA complex picture is emerging over the purchases of the component parts of the device, we know that Al Swealmeen rented the property from April this year and we believe relevant purchases have been made at least since that time,\u201d said Jackson.
\n\u201cWe have now traced a next of kin for Al Swealmeen who has informed us that he was born in Iraq.\u201d
\nThe failed asylum seeker suffered from bouts of mental illness that will \u201cform part of the investigation and will take some time to fully understand\u201d said Jackson.
\nAl Swealmeen was taken in by Elizabeth and Malcolm Hitchcott, a Christian volunteer couple in Liverpool, for eight months from 2017 as his appeal for refugee status played out.
\nElizabeth Hitchcott told the BBC she felt \u201cjust so sad\u201d and \u201cvery shocked\u201d by Sunday\u2019s incident, adding: \u201cWe just loved him, he was a lovely guy.\u201d
\nMalcolm Hitchcott told ITV News that Al Swealmeen spent time in a mental institution after being arrested with a knife in an incident in central Liverpool.
\nThe Times newspaper reported that the improvised device contained TATP \u2014 the same explosive favored by the Daesh group that was used in the 2015 Paris attacks and the Manchester Arena bombing in 2017.
\nThe blast was the second terror-inspired attack in Britain in the last month, after a British MP was stabbed to death as he met constituents in southeast England in October. The two incidents prompted the government on Monday to raise the terror threat level from \u201csubstantial\u201d to \u201csevere\u201d \u2014 the second-highest \u2014 meaning an attack was \u201chighly likely.\u201d
\nIt has also brought Britain\u2019s asylum policy under scrutiny, at a time when London is seeking to tighten its borders, particularly against migrants crossing from France over the Channel.
\nHome Secretary Priti Patel said Al Swealmeen had been able to exploit Britain\u2019s \u201cdysfunctional\u201d immigration system and stay in the country, despite having been rejected for asylum, British media reported.
\nHis conversion to Christianity has also prompted discussion about whether some asylum seekers were using the process to bolster their case to stay in Britain.
\nLiverpool Cathedral, where Al Swealmeen was baptised in 2015 and confirmed in 2017, said it had \u201crobust processes\u201d in place to determine a person\u2019s \u201cgenuine commitment.\u201d
\nMalcolm Hitchcott told BBC local radio he was convinced about Al Swealmeen\u2019s religious conviction.
\n\u201cI was in no doubt by the time that he left us at the end of eight months that he was a Christian,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
LONDON The man who died in a botched bomb attack in the northern English city of Liverpool on Sunday had planned the blast for at least seven months, police said Wednesday. Iraq-born Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, rented a property in the city in April and had made \u201crelevant purchases\u201d for his bomb since \u201cat least\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-227968","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n