Taxi bomber angry over asylum rejection, say UK police

LONDON: An Iraqi-born man who detonated a bomb outside a UK hospital two years ago held a grievance against the British state for rejecting his asylum claim, police said on Monday.

Emad Al Swealmeen, 32, was killed when he set off the homemade device in a taxi outside Liverpool Women´s Hospital in northwest England in November 2021. No one else died in the botched attack, with the taxi driver managing to escape with minor injuries.

The explosion occurred shortly before events to honour military war dead on Remembrance Sunday and was quickly declared a terrorist incident by police. A police investigation has concluded that there was no evidence that Swealmeen held extremist views.