Convicted terrorist asylum seeker linked to Hyde Park rape prompts Home Office scrutiny

The Home Office is under intense scrutiny to explain how Abdelrahmen Adnan Abouelela, an Egyptian asylum seeker who had a terrorism conviction, was allowed into Britain and remained at large long enough to commit a rape in Hyde Park.

Abouelela, 42, was convicted in Egypt in 2015 of being part of a bomb-making cell and given a seven-year sentence. Court records indicate he and six accomplices rented an apartment east of Cairo where they manufactured explosives. He escaped Egypt before his conviction and spent time in Malaysia and Sudan before arriving in Turkey, where authorities reportedly detained him for at least 72 days at Istanbul's Ataturk airport after his asylum request was denied in early 2019. He later claimed asylum in Britain in April 2023, arriving hidden in the back of a lorry and was housed in a taxpayer-funded Hilton hotel in Ealing while his claim was considered. The conviction details were publicly available in Egypt, yet Home Office officials reportedly spent more than a year deciding whether to grant him asylum.

The rape occurred last November when the victim, walking home from a night out, was approached by Abouelela and lured to a secluded spot in Hyde Park, where she was raped. Judge Gregory Perrins told Abouelela that he was driven by his own sexual desires and that the victim had shown “immense bravery and courage” in giving evidence during the trial. In May, Abouelela was convicted at Southwark Crown Court and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison. He is to face automatic deportation after serving his sentence, though he may challenge deportation on grounds related to the European Convention on Human Rights or the Refugee Convention.

The case has prompted questions about how the Home Office screens people who arrive as asylum seekers, including checks against international criminal databases. John Vine, the former chief inspector of borders and immigration, said checks of international criminal databases, if conducted, appeared to have failed and urged a review of how the department accesses data from countries the individual has passed through. “The Home Office needs to look very carefully at how it accessed any databases in countries the individual came through,” Vine said, adding that identifying migrants with criminal records is a core function of the department.

Shadow Home Secretary Chris Philp criticized the handling of the case, telling reporters that the Home Office must urgently examine what went wrong and that the immigration system is broken. He argued for reforms, including replacing or reforming parts of the Human Rights Act in immigration matters and deporting illegal entrants more quickly. The government has said that when foreign nationals commit serious crimes, it will do everything possible to deport them.

The case sits within a broader debate about asylum policy and border controls. In April 2023, reports linked to the Daily Mail noted that hundreds of terror suspects had reached the UK by small boat in 2022, with some already under active investigation abroad when they arrived. The Muslim Brotherhood, to which Abouelela allegedly belonged, is designated as a terrorist organization in several countries but is not banned in the UK. Abouelela’s path—escaping Egypt, living in Turkey, and finally claiming asylum in Britain—highlights the complexities of cross-border intelligence-sharing and the challenges of verifying foreign criminal records for asylum decisions.