The Sudanese Belfast knife attack suspect was a policeman in Khartoum before he travelled to the UK through the asylum ‘back door’, friends have revealed.
Hadi Alodid, 30, was born in Saudi Arabia to a high-profile family from northern Sudan, and was reportedly followed into the UK by two brothers.
The suspect refused to speak when he appeared before Belfast Magistrates’ Court charged with attempted murder – after Stephen Ogilvie, 44, was left missing an eye and with lacerations to his face, neck and back.
Those who knew Alodid before he travelled across the Mediterranean, through Paris and Dublin, and finally to Belfast, said his family hails from the town of Karim, north Sudan.
He was born and spent his early years in Saudi Arabia, but headed back to Sudan for his education.
A man called Azheri Omer said he had been friends with Alodid in Sudan, and that they began the journey to Europe together.
Mr Omer said Alodid had joined the police force in Khartoum, the Sudanese capital, but quit after a few months.
The pair decided to head to Europe by crossing Libya after civil war broke out in Sudan in April 2023.
Hadi Alodid, 30, pictured in a court sketch after his appearance on Wednesday, worked as a policeman in Sudan’s capital, according to a friend
Graphic footage of the knife attack circulated widely on social media on Monday night
Stephen Ogilvie, 44, lost an eye following the attack and suffered injuries to his back, neck and face
Speaking to The Telegraph over the phone, Mr Omer said Alodid had saved up enough money to take him across the Mediterranean Sea and into Europe, but that his own funds had run out in Libya.
Two of Alodid’s brothers later followed in his footsteps, sources familiar with the family told the paper.
One was said to now be living in Liverpool, while the other was thought to be living in Belfast with Alodid.
The suspect’s family is understood to be refusing to speak about his arrest and charge, even to friends.
If Alodid indeed moved to escape the civil war, then he is among an estimated 14 million displaced from their homes and four million to have left the country in the face of the conflict.
Many of these have made their way to Britain, with statistics showing that number of Sudanese small boat migrants claiming asylum in the UK has soared in the past three years.
The rate at which their asylum applications are granted has been above 90 per cent since 2023, when a controversial ‘fast-track’ scheme was introduced, as the graphs below show.
The Daily Mail today revealed that Alodid was granted leave to remain in Britain under this scheme.
He was given permission to stay after completing a 10-page Home Office questionnaire rather than undergoing the standard – and far more rigorous – face-to-face interview process.
It prompted new calls to re-think the ‘streamlined’ programme set up when Rishi Sunak was prime minister as part of his pledge to clear a backlog of 92,000 asylum cases.
Then home secretary Suella Braverman and immigration minister Robert Jenrick – who have both since defected to Reform – oversaw the introduction of the scheme.
It was privately described within the Home Office as the ‘grant factory’, in reference to the huge numbers of asylum seekers granted refugee status.
Asylum seekers from countries like Sudan were allowed to access the streamlined system – reducing the backlog – because the vast majority of their claims were eventually granted in any case due to conflict in their home nations.
But the scheme was dubbed a ‘dangerous folly’ and an ‘asylum amnesty in all but name’ by Migration Watch UK, which campaigns for tougher border controls, after its launch in February 2023, the month Alodid travelled by bus from Dublin to Belfast.
Four months later, in June 2023, it was extended to Sudanese nationals and Alodid was granted a five-year refugee visa in September that year.
His case was dealt with under the fast-track scheme, it is understood.
On Tuesday night, Lendrick Road in east Belfast was engulfed in flames after fires leapt from cars to houses
Residents had to be evacuated on Tuesday night after houses were set ablaze
A young man smiles at the camera in front of a burning barricade on Duncairn Gardens
Known as the ‘Streamlined Asylum Process’, or SAP, it was also open to Eritreans, Syrians, Afghans, Libyans and Yemenis.
A Tory source said: ‘The Home Office at the time did not want to do the fast-track scheme but Rishi forced it on them.
‘It was the worst of both worlds because he failed to stop small boats across the Channel and, at the same time, made it easier to win asylum.
‘It was totally illogical and they should have been working to disincentive asylum seekers.’
An intense and violent response broke out in Belfast after gruesome footage of Monday’s attack was shared widely on social media.
On Tuesday, hundreds of masked men took to the streets and clashed with police, while setting fire to homes, a bus and cars.
They targeted people based on their race, with a number of non-white residents needing to be rescued by emergency services, and reports of gangs kicking in doors while declaring they were ‘getting the foreigners out’.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) appealed for assistance in identifying individuals in images connected to Tuesday night’s disorder.
Groups of masked men gathered and stockpiled missiles to hurl at police in Newtownabbey, to the north-west of Belfast, on Wednesday night
Fires burn in the road surrounding the PSNI’s armoured Land Rovers on Antrim Road
A group of protesters watch an overturned car blazing in the middle of a road in the area
The force also urged those in the pictures to come forward to police.
The Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn has condemned the ‘racist thuggery’.
More trouble followed on Wednesday evening, when police used water cannons on rioters, as officers were pelted with bricks and petrol bombs by balaclava-clad rioters in Co Antrim.
A Department for Infrastructure vehicle was left in flames as rioters confronted police near the Sandyknowes roundabout in Newtownabbey to the north west of Belfast.
Footage showed dozens of men dressed all in black and wearing face coverings gathering on Antrim Road, where they could be seen tearing bricks from properties and smashing paving stones with sledgehammers to create projectiles to throw at police.
Rioters attempted to set fire to a derelict property near a petrol station in Newtownabbey, with some throwing petrol bombs at police lines.
They could also be seen taking wheelie bins from outside homes and lighting fires in them.
In Londonderry, police reported items having been set alight on the Ardmore Road.
The family of the victim Stephen Ogilvie said they were ‘disgusted’ by the disorder.
In response to a second night of disorder, Mr Benn told LBC Radio: ‘Thugs burning people out of their homes because of the colour of their skin.
‘This is not what Northern Ireland is about.’
He added: ‘Most importantly, the family of Stephen Ogilvie, who was so brutally attacked on Monday night, have said that they don’t want to see this.’
